
Class _?S ZAbA. 
Book iS T4_ 



GopyrightN 



\*o I 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




JOEL SWARTZ, D.D. 



POEMS 



BY 



JOEL SWARTZ, D.D. 



"Poetry is itself a thing of God; 
He made His prophets poets, and the more 

We feel of poesie do we become 
Like God in love and power." 



Baily-Frstux. 




PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY T. COATES & COMPANY 

19 1 



THE US3ASY OP 

eowG«t 

TWO CoHSS HECE>vf>> 

DEC, 23 1901 

CLASS 4| KXc N< ». 
COPY 3. 



-p. 



5 if 4 t 



Copyright secured, 1001, by the author, 
Jobl SWABTZ, D.D. 



DEDICATION. 

TO her, who always seeks to share 
Each load of toil or pain I bear; 
Who never fails my heart to cheer, 
When, sad and faint, I struggle on, 
Or when my work is nobly done, 
To say : "Well-done, — God bless you, dear." 

To her, whose smile is my best praise, 

I dedicate these humble lays : 

Some thoughts and themes in "Love at Home," 

Were hinted by her for my pen, 

And as I give them back again, 

I simply send them whence they've come. 



GREETING. 

'T^O loved ones of my hearth and home, 

-"- And those who by their choice have come, 
To share the homestead's fate or fame, 
I fondly send this book of verse. 
And would, if possible, rehearse, 
With lisp of love, each several name. 

Perhaps these products of my brain 
Shall as my monument remain 
When I by face, no more am known ; 
I would, all earthly gifts above, 
Prefer my loved ones' lasting love, 
To any monument of stone. 



WHY I SING. 

I SCARCE could answer why I sing, 
If any one should care to ask; 
I might reply : not as a task 
Have I attempted anything, 
Included in the work I bring. 

My song comes of its own accord, 

Whate'er the theme or measure be ; 

Not undesigned, I mean, but free; 

Some heart-felt thought, some waiting-word, 

Which, coming, brings its own reward. 

Perhaps the buttercup could tell 
The merry maiden who may pass 
That humble floweret in the grass, 
The secret love-song, just as well, 
Which honey bees sing in its bell. 

Or why it started from the mold 
When April airs began to play 
And kissed the crystal frosts away, 
It opened up its heart of gold 
With gladness which it could not hold. 



Ask you why larks and linnets sing? 
The answer's in the matchless strain. 
But why that strident, harsh refrain, 
With which the summer forests ring, 
Is not, I trow, so plain a thing. 

We know when mighty numbers roll 
From some exhaustless fount of song, 
Our willing souls are borne along, 
We would not, if we could, control 
The pleasing raptures of the soul. 

But half we pity while we hear, 
The cricket chirping in the wall ; 
So shrill and feeble is its call. 
We wonder what a song can cheer, 
So uniformly dull and drear. 

And yet, when other sounds were still, 
And we, perhaps, were sad and lone, 
Have we not felt its monotone 
Send through our souls a mystic thrill, 
Unmatched by any artist's skill? 

Now, ask all singers, coarse and fine ; 
Ask buds and blossoms why they blow ; 
And when their reasons all you know, 
Then each with each and all combine, 
And I'll consent they've given mine. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Part First. 

POEMS OF NATURE. 

The Poet Seer 3 

Nature's Hymn 8 

Morning Birds in June 10 

My Preference of Song 9 

The Star and the Taper 12 

The Birth of the Clouds 15 

"At Evening Time It Shall Be Light !" 18 

The Day is Done 19 

"The Red Man's Lip is on the Stream," 20 

The Susquehanna 21 

The Garden of Spices 25 

The Queen of the Cave 26 

Picture of Lake Mohonk. — Glacial Action at Lake Mohonk 30 

Retrospection 34 

"For What They Yet Shall Be," 35 

The Blue and the Grey 36 

Optimism and Pessimism 38 

The Morning Milk-Train 42 

Lord and Peasant or Social Comrasis 43 

The Town Clock 45 

The Grand Charity Hop 49 

Part Second. 
POEMS OF MEDITATION AND REFLECTION. 

"When I Am Awake I Am Still With Thee," 53 

"Arise Thou Glorious Light," etc 53 

"What is Your Life?" 54 

Soul Solitariness 55 

My All 57 

vii 



"Our Heart is Enlarged," 57 

Foregleamings 58 

The Christ-child 60 

The Advent of the King 61 

Names and Titles of Christ 64 

Christ's Prayer for Christian Unity 66 

Gelhsemane 68 

"Alone, Yet Not Alone" 69 

"If Christ Be Not Risen" 70 

"1 Will Not Leave You Comfortless," 71 

"Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone," 72 

The Visions of Youth and The Dreams of Age 74 

What is Man ? 76 

Light on Life's Battle 79 

Whom Shall We Crown? 81 

Heroes, Martial and Moral 83 

Charity Invoked 85 

Christian Patience 85 

The Golden Age 87 

The Larger Plan 88 

The Measure of Life 88 

Sowing in Hope 89 

Learning to Sympathize 90 

The Silence of the Departed 92 

"He Shall Sit as a Refiner," 94 

Pearls or Talents? 94 

Weeds and Deeds 95 

"He That Winneth Souls is Wise." 97 

Memorials, Pharaoh's and Mary's 98 

Benediction 100 

"Inter Equitandums"; or, "Resting on the Road," 101 

Luther in the Nineteenth Century 103 

Luther on Pilate's Stair-case 105 

Unveiling the Luther Monument, Washington, D. C. ... 106 

Luther's Work Tested by Time no 

The Dying Words of Luther 108 

viii 



The Reformation Day, Oct. 31, 1517 112 

Fraternity U3 

Redeeming the Time 113 

Part Third. 
POEMS OF LOVE AT HOME. 

A Handful of Barley 117 

In Praise of Home 117 

Old Family Friends 118 

The Magic Touch of Love 119 

The Soft Answer 120 

The Charm of Hidden Beauty 120 

Where Is Home? 121 

"Vera Amicitia Sempiterna" 122 

To My Love 123 

To a Maid at Seven 125 

Sweet Sixteen 126 

Sober Twenty 129 

"Faith in Papa Makes Me Jump," 132 

Blowing Bubbles 134 

Baby's Hand 135 

To Eddie, "Gone Before," 136 

The Heart's Answer 138 

Leading, I Was Led 139 

Shall We Have a Christmas Tree? 141 

The Poor in Winter 143 

Stilts 145 

Nox Benigna 146 

Joy in the Morning 146 

The Photo of Our Family Group 146 

Birthday Greeting 147 

Birthday Thought 148 

To My Mother on Her Sixty-ninth Birthday 148 

"I Believe in the Resurrection of the Dead" 149 

My Mother's Picture 150 

The Old Dinner-Horn 152 



"Neither Can They Die Any More," 153 

Wedding Bells 154 

Tin Wedding 154 

Silver Wedding 155 

Golden Wedding Ring 156 

Infant Baptism 158 

Why I Love the Grandchildren 159 

Christmas Gift of a Silver Candlestick 160 

A Bicycle Experience 161 

How Troubles Come 162 

"He Giveth His Beloved Sleep," 164 

Years Shorten as They Multiply 165 

The Dissolving Home 166 

Growing Old 168 

My Birthday at Three-score and Ten and Four 169 



Part Fourth. 

POEMS OF TEMPERANCE. 

Autumn Clusters 175 

The Marriage at Cana and the Wine Miracle 176 

The Saloon to Choose for a Boy 179 

The Voter, the Saloon 181 

Throwing Votes Away 183 

Compromise 185 

Burly John Barleycorn 185 

How the Rum License Works 187 

Woman's Ballot 189 

Smiting for Prohibition 190 

Part Fifth. 
MUSINGS FOR THE QUIET HOUR. 

The Creed 195 

The Lord's Prayer 208 



INDEX. 

Advent of the King 61 

Alone, Yet Not Alone 69 

Apostles' Creed 195 

"Arise, Thou Glorious Light," 53 

"At Evening Time It Shall Be Light," 18 

Autumn Clusters 175 

Aibitration, See Lake Mohonk 30 

Baby's Hand 135 

Benediction 100 

Birthday Thought 148 

Birthday, Maid of Seven 125 

Birthday, Sweet Sixteen 126 

Birthday, Sober Twenty 129 

Birthday Greeting to Howard 147 

Birthday, My Mother's 148 

Birthday at Three-score, Ten and Four 169 

Birth of the Clouds 15 

Blowing Bubbles 134 

Blue and Grey 36 

Burly John Barleycorn 185 

Bicycle Experience 161 

Charity Invoked 85 

Charity Hop 49 

Charm of Hidden Beauty 120 

Christ, Advent of the King 61 

Christ-child 60 

Christ, His Names and Titles 64 

Christ's Prayer for Unity 66 



Christian Patience 85 

Christmas Gift, Silver Candlestick 160 

Christmas Tree. Shall We Have a 141 

Clouds, Birth of the 15 

Compromise X 8S 

Creed, the Apostles 195 

Day Is Done 19 

Departed, Silence of the 92 

Dinner-Horn 152 

Dissolving Home 166 

Dying Words of Luther 108 

"Faith in Papa Makes Me jump," 132 

Family Group, Photo of 146 

Family Friends 118 

Fcregleamings 58 

-For What They Yet Shall Be," 35 

Fraternity 113 

Friendship "Vera Amicitia Sempiterna," 122 

Garden of Spices 25 

Gethsemane 68 

Glacial Action at Lake Mohonk 30 

Golden Wedding Ring 156 

Golden Age, The 87 

"Gone Before," To Eddie 136 

Grandchildren, Why I Love the 159 

Greeting IV 

Growing Old 168 

Handful of Barley 117 

Heart's Own Answer 138 

"He That Winneth Souls is Wise," 97 



xn 



"He Giveth His Beloved Sleep," 164 

Heroes, Martial and Moral 83 

"He Shall Sit as a Refiner," 94 

Home, Praise of 1 1 7 

Home, Where Is 121 

"I Believe in the Resurrection of the Dead," 149 

"If Christ Be Not Risen." 70 

Infant Baptism 158 

"Inter Equilandum"; or, "Resting on the Road," 101 

"I Will Not Leave You Comfortless," 7 ! 

Joy in the Morning 146 

Lake Mohonk 30 

Larger Plan 88 

Leading, I Was Led 139 

Learning to Sympathize 9 3 

Light on Life's Battle 79 

Lord and Peasant or Social Contrasts 43 

Lord's Prayer 208 

Luther's Work Tested by Time no 

Luther's Dying Words 108 

Luther in the Nineteenth Century 103 

Luther Monument, Unveiling ic6 

Luther on Pilate's Stair-case 105 

Luther Reformation Day 112 

"Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone," 72 

My All 57 

Magic Touch of Love 119 

Maid of Seven 125 

Marriage at Cana 176 

Measure of Life 88 



XUl 



Memorials, Pharaoh's and Mary's 98 

Morning Birds 10 

Morning Milk Train 42 

My Mother on Her Sixty-Ninth Birthday 148 

My Mother's Picture 150 

Names and Titles of Christ 64 

Nature's Hymn 8 

"Neither Can They Die Any More," 153 

"Not by Bread Alone," 72 

Nox Benigna 146 

Old Dinner-Horn 152 

Optimism and Pessimism 38 

"Our Heart is Enlarged." 57 

Pearls or Talents? 94 

Picture Lake Mohonk 30 

Poet Seer 3 

Poor in Winter 143 

Queen of the Cave 26 

Redeeming the Time 113 

"Red Man's Lip is on the Stream." 20 

Reformation Day 112 

Retrospection 34 

Rum License, How It Works 187 

Saloon to Choose for a Boy 179 

Shall We Have a Christmas Tree? 141 

Silence of the Departed 92 

Silver Candlestick a Christmas Gift 160 

Smiting for Prohibition 190 

Soft Answer 120 

Sober Twenty 129 



XIV 



Social Contrast, Lord and Peasant 43 

Song, My Preference of 9 

Soul Solitariness 55 

Sowing in Hope 89 

Star and Taper 12 

Stilts 145 

Susquehanna 21 

Sweet Sixteen 126 

To My Love 123 

Town Clock 45 

Troubles Come 162 

"Vera Amicitia Sempiterna" 122 

Visions of Youth and Dreams of Age 74 

Votes, Throwing Them Away 183 

Voter and the Saloon 181 

What is Your Life? 54 

"What is Man?" 76 

Wedding Ring, the Golden 156 

Wedding, Silver 155 

Wedding Bells 154 

Wedding, the Tin 154 

Weeds and Deeds 95 

When I'm Awake 53 

Where Is Home? 121 

Whom Shall We Crown? 81 

Why I Love the Grandchildren 159 

Why I Sing V 

Woman's Ballot 189 

Years Shorten as They Multiply 165 




Mm 



^m% 



LAKE MOHONK AND SKYTOP 



Pf\RJ 



Ipocme of mature. 



THE POET-SEER. 

THE Indian's keen, experienced ear, 
When pressed upon his hunting ground, 
Detects the bound of distant deer, 
The stealthy tread of foeman near, 
And many an else unnoticed sound. 

The poet, with a keener ear, 

In solitudes of thought apart, 
Can hear the pulses, far and near, 
In earth and sea and atmosphere, 

Of Nature's never resting heart. 

And his own heart, like those fine strings, 
Across the wind-harp's bosom drawn, 

Can turn to song the unheard things 

Which come and go on airy wings, 
More lightly than the tread of dawn. 

And in the endless ebb and flow 
Of Nature's still unchanging mood, 

He like a prophet strives to show 

Which way the airy currents blow 

That bring mankind their ill and good. 



Poems of Nature. 



His search is that of poet-seer, 

First, in himself the truth to find, 
Then, catch the revelation clear, 
With unsealed eye, with listening ear, 
Sent from the universal Mind. 

For him, e'en silence hath a tongue, 

And darkness holds a hidden light ; 
And many a radiant lamp is swung, 
And many a tuneful chord is strung 
For him in silent depths of night. 

He hears the very sunbeams rain 

Their green and gold upon the leaves ; 
He hears above the furrowed plain 
The deep waves roll of ripened grain 

Which rush and break in surf-like sheaves. 

Thus Angelo, in unhewn stone, 

Saw angels in imprisoned form; 
Beethoven, aged, deaf, alone, 
Heard many a grand, unspoken tone, 
In wild sea-waves and rushing storm. 

'Tis thus that rapt, inspired seers, 

Have heard from lips of starry flame, 
The music of the rolling spheres, 
And caught upon their reverent ears 
The accents of Jehovah's name. 



Poems of Nature. 



And they have heard Creation's groan, — 

The travail of an endless birth; 
The foot-falls of "The Coming One," 
The building of his judgment throne, 

And a regenerated earth. 

And through him, of a "Golden Age," 

When war and strife on earth shall cease ; 
When Passion shall no longer rage, 
But love, good- will shall all engage 
In deeds and ministries of peace. 

Meanwhile, like watchmen on some height — 

Responsive to the people's cry — 
They tell of Sorrow's coming night, 
Or Hope's first gleam of golden light 

Beyond the touch of sea and sky. 

For their keen harpstrings catch the strain 

Of each far-off, triumphal song; 
Or din of battle, cry of pain. 
On some contested, distant plain, 

Where Right still struggles with the Wrong. 

Thus seers of every age and clime — , 
Through eyelids often wet with tears — , 

Have seen from heights of thought sublime, 

Beyond th' horizon of their time, 
The portents of the coming years. 



Poems of Nature. 



They have that sympathy of soul 

Which makes them, as it were, a part 

Of Nature's universal whole, 

And of the feelings which control 
The springs of every human heart. 

And thus an ownership they hold 
Of whatsoe'er the heart may choose, 

Not measured by its worth in gold. 

Nor yet in terms material told, 
But by the spirit's power to use. 

For nought of "sweetness and of light," 
In all the realm of Nature's whole, 

Is bounded by some rival right 

Which intercepts the poet's sight 
Or bars his ownership of soul. 

All truth and beauty, love and grace, 
Come forth to meet the willing heart, 

And full-orbed stand, with unveiled face. 

And arms extended to embrace 

The soul that craves what they impart. 

Thus poet-seers profoundly share 

As 'twere their own, the wide world's woe. 
And thus it is they help to bear 
A portion of its load of care, 

And share, no less, its deep joy too. 



Poems of Nature. 



They've seen, like John, an angel stand — . 

A real presence to the soul — , 
One foot on sea and one on land, 
And in the splendid phantom's hand, 

The vision of an open scroll, 

And heard a voice : "Arise and eat, 

And make your own the mystic scroll ; 
Taste for yourselves the bitter-sweet 
Which like these shores and billows meet 
Down in the depths of every soul, 

"And then from your experience tell 
What all men feel but cannot see ; 
And as your numbers rise and swell, 
You shall be called — , where'er you dwell- 
The poets of humanity." 

And when caught up in such suspense, 
They are at home on every shore; 

They hear, not with a single sense, 

But every faculty intense, 
The world-wide billows' endless roar. 

And they can sing, in wondrous strains, 

Of what men feel but cannot see ; 
The heart's deep longings, voiceless pains, 
The hope that ever in them reigns, 
And of a "better time to-be." 



Poems of Nature. 

And so the world is full of song, 

Triumphant over all its ill ; 
And so the hearts of men are strong 
To combat or to suffer wrong, 

And suffering, to be joyful still. 

Blest be all prophets, bards and seers, 
Who from their larger, clearer scope, 
Know how to give us smiles for tears, 
And on the cloud-land of our fears, 
Can build the glittering arch of hope ! 



T 



NATURE'S HYMN. 

HE stars which shine above, 
The flowers which bloom below, 
Are syllables of love, 

Which into measures flow. 



Could we but frame the song 

Which should those measures tell, 

How deep and pure and strong 
The ceaseless chords would swell ! 

Down distant ages dim, 
E'en from creation's birth, 

The angels' morning hymn 

Still echoes through the earth. 



Poems of Nature. 



This is the one refrain, 
From starry heights above, 

From earth and ocean's plain 
Great Nature's heart is love. 

And so, roam where I will — 

By forest, lake or lea — 
The long-drawn anthem still 

Comes rolling down to me. 

MY PREFERENCE OF SONG. 

T N music, could I have my choice, 
■*- I would prefer the singer's voice 
To sounds of drums and keys and strings ; 
For while I like all tuneful sounds 
With which the music world abounds, 
I like that better still which sings. 

I scarce can tell why strings and keys 
And drums my fancy less should please, 
Though I confess their sweet control, 
Unless it be the singer's art 
Interprets best tne human heart 
And springs more truly from the soul. 

And yet to utter this I'm loth ; 
I rather think I like them both, 



io Poems of Nature. 



When I can have my fullest choice: 
But if not both, but what is best, 
So I renew my first request; 

And crave the soulful singer's voice. 

MORNING BIRDS IN JUNE. 

/^VNE timid note, 

^-^ Is sent afloat, 

From yonder hill-top tree remote; 

The dewy air 

Vibrates afar, 

Beneath the palpitating jar. 

I haste to rise, 

In sweet surprise, 

As Morning opes her dreamy eyes, 

To see unfold 

Her gates of gold, 

And crimson curtains backward rolled. 

I wheel my chair 

To catch the air, 

Which comes from field and forest fair 

Which wafts the strain 

And sweet refrain 

The birds sing ever and again. 



Poems of Nature. i r 



Some sentry bird 

At first is heard, 

As if it were a watchman's word : 

A single trill 

Steals from the hill 

And, for a moment, all is still. 

An answering bird 

E'er long is heard, 

And he is answered by a third ; 

And thus e'er long, 

The morning song 

Swells to a cborus, loud and strong. 

From bush and brake, 

From hill and lake, 

All in the general song partake ; 

Unhelped by art. 

Each takes his part, 

And finds his music in his heart. 

Each velvet throat 

Pours forth its note, 

Upon the trembling air to float ; 

It makes no pause, 

Seeks no applause, 

But from its soul its music draws. 



12 Poems of Nature. 



The airs which sway 

Each bending spray 

Seems dancing as they come my way ; 

And joyful June, 

From morn to noon, 

Claps all her leafy hands in tune. 

Nor can my heart. 

Unskilled in art, 

Refuse to take a thankful part; 

In whispered glee, 

When song's so free, 

I join the general melody. 

THE STAR AND THE TAPER. 

TTOW crowded is celestial space! 
■*"*■ The stars seem prest for room; 

Yet each with its peculiar grace, 
Drops through this nether gloom, 

A beam from else an empty place. 

Behold what streams of trembling light, 

Meet where I walk alone ; 
How, where converge those arches bright, 

Upon her saphire throne, 
Presides the solemn Queen of Night ! 



Poems of Nature. 



13 



Perhaps, to-night, some conclave great 

Is in her star-gem'd hall ; 
Some marriage feast, some high debate, 

And hence those tapers tall, 
To grace the splendors of her state. 

The winds have lent their friendly aid, 

To clear the mists away ; 
And somber Night, with deepest shade, 

Has polished every ray, 
From yonder glittering floor, inlaid. 

There's not a star-flake in those drifts 
Which bank the Milky Way, 

But through yon silvery net-work sifts, 
And on my feet which stray, 

Its far-off, trembling beacon lifts. 

Nor keeps it back one slender ray 
Because 'tis weak and small, 

But loves to light my lonely way, 
And fain its beam lets fall, 

And sweetly shines because it may. 

The lamp I hold is weak and small, 

Amid earth's moral night ; 
I sometimes think if it should fall, 

No one would miss its light, 
Or know that it had shined at all. 



14 Poems of Nature. 



And yet I trim its feeble spark, 

And try to have it shine, 
Although no one its place should mark, 

Or know that it is mine, 
And all because it is so dark. 

Why should I dare my lamp to hide 

In sense of fear or shame ? 
A soul immortal by my side 

Is asking for its flame, 
And must not, dare not be denied. 

But what are all those tapers tall 

Which gleam along the sky ? 
The time will come when they shall fall, 

Or in their sockets die, 
And my faint spark outlive them all. 

They shine, but know not why they shine ; 

They watch us from above 
With sleepless eyes, almost divine. 

But have no hearts of love, 
And have no thinking soul like mine. 

Some day above a new made earth 
A new made heaven shall roll ; 

But yet above that second birth 
Of Nature, shall the soul 

Arise in its transcendent worth. 



Poems of Nature. 



15 



There is within my soul a flame, 
Wrought by the Spirit's breath, 

Which also under some "new name," 
Beyond the "second death," 

Shall glow with glory to his name. 

Farewell, thou glorious Queen of Night, 

Girt with thy starry zone ; 
When thou, to my superior right, 

Shalt abdicate thy throne, 
I shall ascend those arches bright, 

And with ten thousand other flames 

Shall light the brighter skies ; 
And shall adorn their higher claims, 

With sweeter, love-lit eyes 
And with immortal, nobler names. 

THE BIRTH OF THE CLOUDS. 

YON clouds which fly 
Across the sky, 
Show little of their lowly birth ; 
Their skirts of gold, 
With fold on fold, 
Bespeak them more of heaven than earth. 

In fact, they float 
From both remote, 



1 6 Poems of Nature. 



Across the fields of ether fair; 

We cannot trace 

Their native place, 
For clouds seem born just where they are. 

Nor is their birth 

Alone of earth, 
They're children of the earth and sun : 

By sunbeams kissed, 

The morning mist 
From earth to heaven will rise and run. 

Clouds come and go 

In endless flow — , 
Forever changing, ever new : 

Change as they may 

In endless play, 
They charm with every shape and hue. 

What though the fogs 

Are born in bogs 
Or from the hot and steaming street ; 

They blush to gold 

When they behold 
The Morning kneeling at their feet. 

In sweet surprise, 
At once they rise, 
As if a holy censer burned ; 
Their robes of night, 



Poems of Nature. 17 

Of grey and white, 
At once to fleecy gold are turned. 

All take their place 

With equal grace, 
And with a common splendor glow; 

Nor difference find 

In rank or kind 
From earthly stations, high or low. 

I've seen a light, 

From regions bright, 
Touch men with its transforming ray; 

And seen them rise, 

Towards purer skies, 
And soar from sordid things away. 

Nor those alone 

Have brightly shone 
Which rose from favored rank or birth; 

But base and low 

From want and woe, 
Have upward mounted from the earth. 

O, Light divine, 

Upon me shine ; 
From earth's low pleasures I would flee ! 

As warm mists run 

To meet the sun, 
So would my spirit run to thee. 



1 8 Poems of Nature. 

"AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT. 

A MOUNTAIN barrier crossed our way; 
It seemed to touch the bending blue ; 
No road around it seemed to stray; 
No gorge appeared to let us through. 

Yet following still as we were led, 
The summit seemed to melt away ; 

By bracing air and sunshine fed, 
Our strength was equal to our day. 

The breath of frost was on the breeze 
And strangely chilled the Summer air ; 

The clouds hung tangled in the trees, 
And solitude reigned everywhere. 

But when the toilsome day was done, 

The level land before us lay, 
Bathed in a glorious setting sun, 

And clouds and hills had rolled away. 

That climb to us was doubly blest, 
In spite of toilsome length and height ; 

It soothed for us the couch of rest ; 
And glorified the dreams of night. 

Its memory haunted us next day ; 
It touched the earth, it bent the skies ; 



Poems of Naiu re. ig 



It moved a light upon our way, 
And gave a glory to our eyes. 

That memory said: "All heights essay; 

To conscience and to God be true; 
Then hills and mountains will give way, 

Or part, somehow, to let you through. 

"If not, there shall be given strength, 
To climb the steeps, to mount the height ; 

If dark the day throughout its length ; 
'At evening time it shall be light.' " 

THE DAY IS DONE. 

HP HE day is done — 
"■* Once more the sun 
Hath through the sky his journey run; 
The live-long day, 
His flaming ray 
Hath kept primeval Night at bay. 

But looking back, 

The sky is black. 

And Night comes trailing on his track ; 

And in this chase 

She'll gain the race, 

And throw her black scarf on his face. 



20 Poems of Nature. 



For sages say, 

Some time, some way, 

The night overtake the day ; 

The solar flame 

Sink whence it came, 

Where light and darkness are the same. 

So let it be, — 

If heaven decree, 

That night shall bring no night to me : 

Altho' a sleep 

Ere then may steep 

My sense in shadows, dark and deep. 

Yet from mine eye 

These shades shall fly 

Beneath a fairer, brighter sky : 

A purer light 

Shall greet my sight 

When stars and suns are lost in night. 

"THE RED-MAN'S LIP IS ON THE STREAM." 

/COLUMBIA'S rivers bind her races — 
v -' The Red and White, in bands of blue ; 
The white man and the red man's faces, 
Confront us in a hundred places, 

Where our broad rivers wander through. 



Poems of Nature. 2 1 



What though the tribes are gone forever, 

Or linger as a vanished dream, 
Yet can the lapse of ages never, 
The white man and the red man sever — , 

The Indian's lip is on the stream. 

Afloat, this eve, on one such river, 

Whose Indian name suggests my theme, 
I watch the shimmering moon-beams quiver, 
The star-thrown lances break and shiver, 
Which all around me dance and gleam. 

And thus, I deem, on these same waters, 

Far back in unrecorded clays, 
Old Susquehanna's dark-eyed daughters, — 
Sad remnants of the white man's slaughters — , 

Gazed on this scene as now I gaze. 

Their sighs and tears seem with mine blended, 

As soft oars plash the whispering waves, 
Which seem to say : "Had Right defended 
Those vanished tribes whose race is ended, 
You need not blush above their graves." 

THE SUSQUEHANNA. 

OWEET river of the "Winding Shore/** 
^ Thou layest thy band of liquid blue 
Against the hills thou wanderest through, 
And they are bright forevermore. 
*Indian meaning of the name. 



22 Poems of Nature. 

How often have I gazed on thee 
As now I from this height survey 
Thy broad and winding current stray 

From out the mountains toward the sea ! 

The mountains part to give thee room, 
And rise with bare, uncovered heads, 
To guard the royal road that leads 

Thy bright waves to their ocean home. 

And passing down their winding ranks, 
Thou lowly servant, as is meet, 
Dost bend to wash their stony feet 

Thrust down thy steep and flowery banks. 

Green islands dot thy shallow stream, 
Like distant hill-tops drifted down, 
And anchored by some happy town, 

Whose steeples in thy mirror gleam. 

And as the current they divide, 
They seem to run the other way, 
Or like leviathans to play, 

Behind the reed-rows on their side. 

Thou wilt not bear upon thy breast 
The beating of the steam-boat's wheel. 
Nor suffer the dividing keel 

Of commerce to disturb thy rest. 



Poems of Nature. 



23 



But freely may the light skiff play, 
Thy shadowing rocks and hills along 
Which echo back the rower's song 

At closing of a summer's day. 

Or if he drop his oar and glide, 

Like some soft shadow on thy stream, 
He then may hear, as if in dream, 

A whispering music at his side — , 

A music which may sadly tell 

Of Susquehanna's vanished braves, 
And of their long forgotten graves, 

And of the stream they loved so well. 

Sometimes as I have floated by 

These islands, jutting rocks and hills, 
And felt the silent joy that fills 

The mountains and the deep blue sky, 

I thought that I could somewhat see 

Why England's far-famed, Grasmere bards, 
Had hoped among these mountain guards, 

To plant their "Pantisocracy." 

They fondly fancied, in this glow, 
To see their fair Utopia rise, 
And find beneath these peaceful skies 

A home removed from want and woe. 



24 



Poems of. Nature. 

And here, in undisturbed content, 

In study and alternate rest, 

To live apart, supremely blest, 
Until their happy days were spent. 

True, all was but a poet's dream. 

And though a dream, 'twas so sublime, 
That one finds in their matchless rhyme, 

A fancy worthy of their theme. 

Their verse still all this landscape fills; 
Their visions now before me rise, 
And tinge these overarching skies. 

And glorify these splendid hills. 

Had Southy, Coleridge, Wordsworth's verse 
Portrayed, instead of mine, this scene 
Of floods and hills and mountains green. 

The world their measures would rehearse. 

For neither Rhone nor castled Rhine, 
Nor famed Hudson, villa crowned, 
Though praised for beauty earth around, 

Can, Susquehanna, equal thine. 



Poems of Nature. 25 

THE GARDEN OF SPICES. 

"South wind blow upon my garden that the spices thereof 
may flow out." Cant. 4:16. 

WHEN April's warm currents steal over the hills, 
Drawn up from the tropics to follow the sun; 
How leap forth to meet them the unfettered rills, 
. And down to the valleys rejoicingly run ! 

The winds from the South waft the robins along, 
As winter-winds wafted the white-winged snow ; 

And out of the tree-tops they answer the song, 
Which merry brooks babble in channels below. 

The long absent sun now wheels up in the blue, 
And sprinkles arbutus where ice-gems were seen ; 

The hills and the valleys assume a soft hue, 

And hasten to fling out their banners of green. 

No earthquake is needed to waken the flowers, 

Though sleeping and dreaming for months, every 
one; 

They hear on their covers the patter of showers, 
And come to their portals to welcome the sun. 

Eve seen mortal men in the semblance of death, 
Benumbed in their natures, by sin-fetters cold, 

Grow vital when touched by the Spirit's warm breath, 
And countless new graces and beauties unfold. 



26 Poems of Nature. 

O, South-wind of heaven, O, come thou and blow; 

My garden of balm is frost-burdened and bare! 
And cause the sealed fountain of spices to flow, 

And make the drear prospect look lovely and fair! 

And breathe on the wilderness, breathe through the 
gloom, , 

Where nothing of beauty and loveliness grows; 
The wastes at thy coming shall burst into bloom, 

The desert shall blossom and blush as the rose! 

THE QUEEN OF THE CAVE. 

ON a mountain, 
By a fountain, 
In a deep ravine, 
Once a taper 
In a vapor 
Nightly could be seen. 

Here Legend said, 

There dwelt a maid — , 
A fairy maiden Queen — , 

Who up the rocks 

Drove snowy flocks 
When only stars were seen. 

When flushed the morn 
She blew a horn, 



Poems of Nature. 27 



Of finest silver made, 

And swift as night 
Escapes the light, 

Her fleecy charge obeyed. 

From far and wide 

On every side 
They sought the cave profound; 

In rest or play 

They spent the day 
A league beneath the ground. 

Once on a morn 

A hunter's horn 
Among the hills was played; 

The dying strain 

Was caught again 
In answers from the maid. 

He followed fleet 

The myriad feet 
And fountain-fed ravine ; 

With wondering eyes 

And keen surprise 
The misty cave was seen. 

He entered in 
And dared begin 
Its winding ways, unknown; 
Far back and lone 



28 Poems of Nature. 

A taper shone 
And glanced from stone to stone. 

He followed on; 

Now it is gone, — 
And now again is seen; 

How chill the air 

Was everywhere 
Beneath the arched ravine ! 

With awe-struck ears 

He faintly hears 
The plash of water-falls, 

Which as he goes 

Still louder grows 
Along the echoing walls. 

At last forlorn, 

He grasped his horn, 

He blew a ringing blast; 
Wild echoes rolled 
Through depths untold 

And hollow windings vast. 

But soon a sound, 
From depths profound, 

Was heard in answer, "Come ! 
Come to my light, 
In chambers bright, 

Come to my rock-built home ! 



Poems of Nature. 29 



"A league below, 
And white as snow, 

You'll find my crystal home; 
Follow the light 
To chambers bright — 

Come to my mansion, come !" 

Once and again 
The soft refrain 

Still guided with its "Comer 
And as she sung 
A bright light swung 

Down in a flashing dome. 

Two pillars grand, 
Clasped hand in hand, 

Are in that cave today; 
The twain are one 
Of snow-white stone, 

Wedded for aye and aye. 

From hand to hand, 

A crystal band. 
Of flashing flint is seen, 

Whereon is read : 

"The twain are wed — 
The Hunter and his Queen." 

Upon the floor, 
These forms before, 



3° 



Poems of Nature. 



Two trumpets lie unblown; 

While all around, 

Upon the ground, 
Are flocks of fleecy stone. 

Upon a cliff, 

In hyeroglyph, 
Which overhangs their heads, 

A sage renowned 

This legend found, — 
And let him think who reads : 

"Man with his aim 

Becomes the same 
Beyond the -will's control, 

Holds in his grasp 

With flinty clasp. 
The idol of his soul." 

GLACIAL ACTION AT LAKE MOHONK. 
Written on the highest rock on Sky Top, September 10, 1901. 
OOMETIME, I trow, a glacial plow, 
^ With beam of polar frost, 
(I would I knew just when and how) 
These severed mountains crossed. 

Perhaps, far back in Earth's gray dawn. 

Its tilted axis hurled 
The giant boulders, tossed and torn. 

Half way around the world. 



Poems of Nature. 



31 



Or mayhap, from the North, afar, 
The glittering plowshare came. 

Yoked to the rising morning star, 
Scourged by Aurora's flame, — 

The mighty mould-board crunching through 
Down to great "ShongumV''* heart, 

The grinding, carving furrow drew 
Which pressed these hills apart. 

Backward the giant boulders roll, 

Artesian fountains flow, 
And Mohonk's scooped out, rock-rimmed bowl 

Is brimmed from streams below. 

Blue as the downward bending skies 

It lies the hills between, 
While rocks and trees which round it rise 

Float in the mirrory sheen. 

The Wallkill and the Rondout vales, — 

Rich, beautiful and wide, — 
Sweep North and South, till vision fails, 

On Shungum's either side. 



*"Shon'gum" — correct pronunciation of "Shawangunk," the 
mountain range on which Mohonk is situated. 

At an altitude of twelve hundred feet above the Hudson, in 
a rocky recess of this mountain lies Lake Mohonk. "The 
whole mountain is a vast tumble of rock, piled in fantastic con- 
fusion." From the summit of the mountain may be traced the 
winding course of the Hudson and the distant line of the Green 
Mountains. 



Poems of Nature. 



In recent years, a genius came 
Who made these lands his own, 

And so adorned them that their fame 
Half round the world is known. 

Beneath his wondrous skill and care, 

Sky-climbing roads abound, 
While bloom, most rare, perfumes the air 

For smiling leagues around. 

From lands and cities, far and near, 

The weary myriads come, 
And here find rest and health and cheer 

In Mohonk's mountain home. 

But what far more my bosom thrills, 

And warm emotions wake, 
Than all the glory of these hills 

And beauty of this lake, 

Are those ideals, objects, aims, 
For which Lake Mohonk stands, 

Its high achievements, honored names, 
In this and other lands? 

And first, its aim and name exclude 
What grieves the mortal sense; 

The follies which elsewhere intrude 
Are boldlv banished hence. 



Poems of Nature. 33 

No rum-breath taints this mountain air, 

No curse an echo wakes; 
But rather song and praise and prayer 

The sacred silence breaks. 

Here ripest Wisdom, Love and Worth, 

By truth and grace refined, 
Have given noblest measures birth 

For good to all mankind. 

Here Arbitration, hating war, 

And praying strife may cease, 
Has seen the magians' Eastern Star 

Gleam in this lake of peace. 

And Justice for the Indian race, 

And Culture for the slave, 
Meet here and seek, by Christ's free grace, 

These needy souls to save. 

And thus from Mohonk eminate 

Such deeds for Liberty, 
As would, to any place or State, 

Give immortality. 



34 



Poems of Nature. 



RETROSPECTION. 

LIFE'S pilgrim looks from peak to peak, 
f Across a hazy vale of years, 
In whose soft light he loves to seek 
Each desert step or fount of tears. 

Each obvious cliff or stream or hill, 
Which marks the intervening way, 

Though distant, seems familiar still, 
But fairer in the grand survey. 

Thus do the long-receding years, 
Contracting into months and days, 

Throw o'er life's rugged toils and tears 
A softening and a golden haze. 

'Tis but the large events we see 

Which turned our feet, as round a slope, 
Down thro' some vale of agony, 

Or up some sun-lit cliff of hope. 

Thanks for the hazy, golden hue, 
Which rounds the angles of the past, 

And from the whole presents a view 
So mellow and so sweet at last. 

Thus may the charity of friends, 
Broad as the beaming heavens above, 

Drop where each pilgrim's journey ends, 
The softening mantle of its love. 



Poems of Nature. « 



FOR WHAT THEY YET SHALL BE. 

TO A DISCOURAGED WORKER IN AN "INDUSTRIAL HOME. 

OEE you my slender briar-rose, — 
^ My cactus, rough with thorn; 
Each in its cozy corner grows, 
On each my willing hand bestows 
Attention, night and morn. 

These objects of my constant care, 

Are not yet fair to see; 
Nor do they now my labor share 
For what by any means, they arc, 

But what they yet shall be. 

Not yet above those cactus hands — 

So coarse and thick and green — 
The waited, crimson goblet stands; 
But o'er its rim, soft silken bands, 

In due time will be seen. 

The rose shall also wear a crown, 

More gorgeous than the queen; 
From out the thorns which prick and frown, 
I soon shall see the rose's down 

Break like a smile between. 

What if with "Mary's better part," 
You also have the thorn ? 



36 Poems of Nature. 

Have patience, dear, discouraged heart, — 
And try with every loving art, 
Rude childhood to adorn. 

Your work shall live when roses die, 

And moons and stars shall fade ; 
Though now unseen by mortal eye, 
When rolls apart yon outstretched sky, 

Its worth shall be displayed. 

THE BLUE AND GRAY. 

Written on occasion of the Reunion of the Blue and Gray 
at Gettysburg. 

r T~\ HE winds have blown the clouds away 
-*■ And now we see the Blue and Gray 
Are met at Gettysburg today. 

From North and South the warriors come, 
Not to the bugle blast and drum, 
Thank God, that dreadful din is dumb. 

They rather come in grief to lay 
Sweet tokens from the bloom of May 
Upon the mounds of kindred clay. 

Mark ! how their manly bosoms swell 

As, here and there, they halt to tell 

How some brave comrade fought and fell : 



Po.ms of Nature. 



37 



How through these gorges ranks defiled 
Where war's sulphureous whirlwind wild 
The dead in ghastly windrows piled. 

Together down the line they ride, 

The peaceful colors side by side 

Where once the ground was crimson dyed. 

No word revives the old debate 
Or kindles up those fires of hate 
Which burned along those lines of late. 

But rather every prospect awes ; 

They feel, as here and there, they pause, 

That God hath judged their country's cause 

That here, from out the battle's smoke, 
The God of truth and justice spoke, 
And every bondman's fetters broke; 

And, as it were, their fragments cast 
Into the battle's furnace blast 
And on these granite anvils vast 

Forged chains of union and of law, 
The States in closer ties to draw, 
Without a fracture or a flaw. 

And years shall but their strength increase, 
As hate and war on earth shall cease, 
And wider reigns the Prince of Peace. 



^8 Poems of Nature. 



OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM. 

TWO Teutons, one morning, were taking a ride, 
They met and they halted upon the road-side, 
Just where some tall cedars their acres divide — , 
The acres of Handshuh and Stiefel. 

They both were philosophers, each of his kind, 
And each, by some crotchet or kink in his mind, 
Could always some semblance of argument find — , 
The which will appear in the sequel. 

Now, Handschuh's round visage resembled the moon, 
He always was humming or whistling some tune, 
And jolly was he as a jay-bird in June — , 

Like jay's it was improvisation. 

But Stiefel was sombre and pallid and gray, 
Lived much in "brown study," had little to say, 
And sadder than ever he seemed on that day — , 
Depending somewhat on digestion. 

"Good morning," said Handshuh, "a very bright morn; 
I never have seen since the day I was born, 
A prospect so pleasing for barley and corn — ," 
And laughing he rose in his saddle! 

"Ah, yes," murmured Stiefel, "but nobody knows, 
What blightings and mildews ere summer shall close, 
May ruin the finest and fairest that grows. 



Poems of Nature. 



39 



"This morning I noted what greatly I fear, 
May ruin the prospect, though fine it appear, 
Two nasty cut-worms on the point of an ear — ," 

Said, shrugging, as if he had eat them ! 

"But, why, neighbor Stiefel, be sad or forlorn? 
I opened twelve 'bouncers' for breakfast this morn, 
And found them all filled with the finest of corn," 
Said, smacking, as if he had eat them ! 

"But, look, neighbor Handshuh, adown the long line, 
Which stretches between your fair acres and mine, 
And see how the briars luxuriantly twine — , 

Deforming the border between us !" 

"I see in such evil — and much that it is worse — 
The proof of a primal, perpetual curse, 
All showing that Nature, and man are perverse — , 
Good angels defend us and screen us !" 

"But, see, neighbor Steifel, how through the sharp spines, 
Which only watch over the beautiful vines, 
The plentiful, delicate blackberry shines ! 

Good angels thus shielded from evil !" 

"The lightning, quite lately, friend Handshuh, you see, 
Has shattered and ruined the stately old tree — , 
What pity, the land-mark between you and me ! 



40 Poems of Nature. 



"And note how the tempest, the hail and the rain, 
Which swept through the forest and over the plain, 
Has torn down the orchards and leveled the grain — , 
The work of "The Prince of the Air!" 

"Ah, yes, neighbor Stiefel, the charge was severe, 
But let us be thankful that we were not here, 
And also be thankful that no one was near! 

"Besides, the swift tempest, with fury so rare, 
Has made the air purer, the heavens more fair, 
And brightens this morning whose beauties we share — , 
With thanks to 'The Prince of the Air !' " 

"The old times were better, friend Handshuh, I'm sure, 
The people were kindlier, their morals more pure, 
And justice and honor made all things secure. 

"Alas ! in this decade, how fashion and pride, 
And falsehood and envy (it can't be denied), 
Are crowding upon us from every side ! 

"Fair dealing and justice are bartered for gold; 
The churches are selfish, the preachers are cold, 
And scoffers are many and blatant and bold — ," 

All said with a tone that was tearful ! 

"But Providence, Stiefel, kind Providence rules; 
The humble and reverent, indulgently schools, 
While scourging and checking the folly of fools — ," 
Said Handshuh with accent most cheerful ! 



Poems of Nature. 



41 



"The world as we know it, or know it we might, 
Is rolling forever from darkness to light, 
And so is becoming more glorious and bright. 

"As fair as the sunbeams, this beautiful morn, 

Which gild with their glory the barley and corn, 

In the light of whose smiling the morning was born; 

"So, through the thin mists of the long-coming years, 
A promise and prospect already appears, 
Which all the bright present illumines and cheers — ," 
This present including dear Stiefel ! 

"The friends of true virtue are triumphing still, 
The angels' sweet anthem of 'Peace and Good-will,' 
The world of the future with rapture shall fill" — 
Dear Stiefel grew hopeful and gleeful ! 

"The churches with missions are girdling the earth, 
The groans of its travail are changing to mirth, 
When angels shall sing as they did at its birth ;" 
And Handshuh attempted to sing. 

The Teutons grew silent with musings, the while, 
As if they were thinking, in logical style, 
Of points of opinion that might reconcile, 

The truths of philosophy, given above, 
To bind as seems fitting, in wisdom and love, 
The foot in the "boot" with hand in the "glove," 
'Twas done, but Handshuh continued: 



42 Poems of Nature. 



"Does good neighbor Stiefel think long, long ago, 
The men and the women whom little we know, 
Did only right actions and nothing for show ? 

"The well-powdered tresses, the long-dangling queue, 
The fine silver buckles on breeches and shoe, 
With folly and fashion had nothing to do ?" 

"Sie meinen auf Stiefel Herr Handshuh?" 

"Their virtue and honor and other good ways, 
As far as they had them, I'm willing to praise, 
But deem that the present are happier days — 

And, "happier," they whispered, "Adieu." 

THE MORNING MILK-TRAIN. 

SEE, how the morning milk-train flies 
With puffs of mingled joy and pity, 
Unhalting by way-station hies, 

With might and main to reach the city ! 

A score of fields of clovered kine, 
Sweetbreathed, have filled the shining treasures, 
A thousand waiting homesteads pine, 
With hands upon their empty measures. 

Haste, engineer, put on the steam, 
Throw open wide the puffing throttle, 

The house-wife's waiting for the cream, 
The baby's crying for the bottle. 



Poems of Nature. 



43 



Ten thousand hungry boys and girls, 

Half-dreaming of their books and numbers, 

Are tossing back their shining curls, 

And waking from their morning slumbers. 

And they will bless you, every one, 

For brimming goblets, rich and pearly, 

Because you made your splendid run, 
And rose and came to town so early. 

Let ribbon-throated Tabby, too, 

And frisking Carlo have their measures, 

For something, too, these pets is due 
For what they give in daily pleasures. 

The sick, the old, in their distress, 

List for the whistle's welcome warning, 

They, too, the engineer will bless 

Who brings the milk-train in the morning. 

LORD AND PEASANT; OR SOCIAL CONTRASTS. 

A MUSCOVITE, gay, 
£*■ In Paris, one day, 
With plenty of roubles and willing to pay; 

Was careful to post 

His Gallican host 
That he was a lord from the Baltic sea-coast. 



44 



Poems of Nature. 



His parlors were fine, 

And sparkling his wine, 
The best of the vintage of Moselle and Rhine ; 

He saw all the sights, 

By sun and gas lights, 
Of Paris, the gay, in its depths and its heights. 

In wrath and surprise 

He opened his eyes 
While scanning the cost of the Frenchman's supplies, 

And was heard to declare, 

With a horrified stare, 
That the charges for fare were wholly unfair. 

"Five francs for five peaches !" 

His roubles he reaches 
With mumblings and rumblings of Sclavic-French 
speeches ; 

"Monsieur, debonair; 

Are peaches so rare?" 
"Oh, no," said the Frenchman, "but Russian lord are" 

The bulletins say, 

The very same day, 
A peasant in Paris a-famishing lay 

On dumpings of stones, 

Of ashes and bones, 
Discovered, near death, by his pitiful groans. 



Poems of Nature. ^ = 



In whispers he said, 

While turning his head, 
"I'm searching this mass for a morsel of bread." 

Some said, with surprise 

And tears in their eyes, 
"Ah, still at the portal poor Lazarus lies !" 

THE TOWN CLOCK. 

WITH what an open, honest face 
The town clock from his lofty place, 
High in the church's steeple; 
Upon the multitude looks down 
As if he governed all the town, 
And cared for all the people ! 

He stands so high he knows the eye 
Of every person passing by 

Inspects his balanced fingers ; 
But not for shame or fear of blame 
Nor yet for honor and a name 

He never halts or lingers. 

From all his features in repose 
None on the pavement ever knows 

How hard he works his minions; 
With what incessant clack and click, 
Through all their motions slow and quick, 

He drives his polished pinions. 



46 Poems of Nature. 



And yet there are deep lines of care 
Upon his chin and forehead fair, 

In fact on every feature, 
Which tell of moil and brain-sweat oil 
And all the conscientious toil 

Of this laborious creature. 

The fits and jerks with which he works 
Are due perhaps to cranks and shirks, 

Among his ill-paid people; 
We know at least, his hands, men like, 
Are almost always on a strike, 

Up in his lordly steeple. 

Still, without pause from any cause 
He keeps and carries out the laws 

Of Time, his ancient master. 
So on he works with equal mind, 
Not like some laggard, now behind, 

And now a little faster. 

His royal throne he holds alone 
Not as an idler or a drone, 

But rightfully deserves it ; 
He is the people's honest choice, 
His merit won the public voice, 

His faithfulness preserves it. 

Why rule those hands the seas and lands 
And all obey the mute commands 



Poems of Nature. 47 



By this mild monarch given? 
He rules not men by selfish might, 
He neither makes nor breaks the right, 

But gives us laws from heaven. 

His loyal soul accepts control 

From yon unerring orbs which roll, 

High in the vault above him ; 
With watchful eye he scans the sky, 
And loyal to the law on high, 

Tells why men serve and love him. 

High though he reigns, his toils and pains 
Without one thought of private gains, 

Are purely for the people; 
He rules because he serves the best 
And by this universal test, 

He holds and crowns the steeple. 

So, like some Moses on the mount, 
His hands accept for man's account, 

The law sent down from heaven ; 
And like the prophet veiled he stands, 
Behind the screen of both his hands, 

While thus the law is given. 

A watchman, too, I've heard him tell 
The slumbering city all is well — 

His rounds are marked by ringing; 
Like poet's rhymes his cheerful chimes 



48 Poems of Nature. 



Have thrilled my spirit many times, 
As 'twere an angel singing. 

All do not hear with equal cheer 
The night bell ringing sweet and clear, 

From out the sacred steeple ; 
The same tones tell, in song or knell, 
That all is woe, or all is well, 

To different kinds of people. 

The sick man tossing on his bed 
With fevered pulse and aching head 

Starts at the Town clock's ringing; 
He hears but in its measured tones 
The painful echo of his groans, 

And not the voice of singing. 

The culprit in his bolted cell 

By no means hears that chiming bell, 

Rung through his night of sorrow; 
Which charms the maiden glad and gay, 
Who waits the dawing of the day 

And marriage on the morrow. 

Or when we roam afar from home, 
Can any bells in tower or dome 

Ring like the bell behind us? 
Nay, of that bell we love so well 
Its wedding chimes or funeral knell, 

Those but at best remind us. 



Poems of Nature 49 



And I have heard a welcome word, 
Which all my spirit in me stirred, 

Rung from the old church steeple, 
As sick for home, I ceased to roam, 
A bright familiar, "Welcome, come, 

To waiting friends and people." 

"THE GRAND CHARITY HOP." 

/ I ^HERE passed through our town an appeal and a call, 
-*- On rose-tinted menus and bills, by the score, 
Inviting kind people to come to the hall 

And join the "Grand Hop for the good of the poor.' : 

'Twas touching to witness the multitudes come 
By hundreds, to answer the moving appeal; 

They crowd to the hall-door, they elbow for room, 
For charity burns in each sensitive heel. 

High revelry rang from the hall through the night, 
For the city's bon-ton and its beauty were there; 

The tapers looked down with an envious delight 
On sparkles of diamonds and jewels so rare. 

When music arose with voluptuous swell, 

And whirlings and waltzings spun on, to and fro, 

That charity's moving, on-lookers could tell, 

From springing of heel and from tripping of toe. 



50 Poems of Nature. 



But hark, what a noise from the roof to the street ! 

Is charity shaking the ceiling and wall? 
Or is it the beating of snow-drift and sleet? 

Or is the high stepping too much for the hall ? 

Nay, on with the dance, 'tis the rushing of hail, 
The snow's avalanches to pavements below, 

It all is an echo of poverty's wail, 

Borne hither from garrets and cellars of woe. 

Yea, twang the tense cello and blow the loud horn, 

Sweep on with gay measures the smooth dancing floor, 

And chase the glad hours far into the morn, 
For keen as the wind is the want of the poor ! 

O, who does not know, in the depth of his sole, 
That charity only with cheerfulness lives? 

If pleasure, unbounded, the giving control, 
It greatly enhances the bounty it gives. 

How many, sore-wounded, were heeled by the din, 
How many, a-sinking, were toed to the shore, 

When bills were all footed and cash was all in, 
Was told by a trumpet as done for the poor! 

For why should the right from the left foot conceal 
The goodness each felt in the depth of its sole ? 

Was charity not the self -same in each heel 

And common the impulse that prompted the whole ? 



PAF^T II. 



poems of ADeMtation ant) "(Reflection. 



•WHEN I AM AWAKE I AM STILL WITH THEE. 

THE fancies of the dreaming brain, 
When I awake, like shadows flee; 
How sweet, when thought returns again, 
To find, O Lord, I'm still with thee ! 

In dreaming I've had stores of gold 
Have travelled over land and sea 

Had treasures which I could not hold 
But waking. Lord, I was with thee! 

Long vanished friends have come again, 

Whom I was overjoyed to see; 
But wept when they could not remain ; 

But waking, Lord, I was with thee! 

When through Death's shadows I shall go, 

However deep the "valley" be; 
Beyond its mystery may I know, 

"When I awake I'm still with thee !" 



M 



ARISE, THOU GLORIOUS LIGHT. 

ORE sweet He comes than morning light 
Upon the golden hills; 
And sweeter than the dew of night, 
Which, with a silent freshness bright, 
The glittering landscape fills. 



54 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



He conies to pour a gladsome ray 

Wherever night may be ; 
To usher in an endless day, 
And gird the islands far away 

With light, as with the sea. 

He comes to break the prison bars 

Where souls in bondage lie; 
To heal whatever hurts or mars, 
Sin's saddest and most deadly scars 

Whereof, unhelped, we die. 

He passes by no human need, 

Whate'er its source or name; 
He will not break the bruised reed, 
The faintest spark of hope He'll feed, 

And trim the golden flame. 

Arise, thou glorious light divine ! 

Drive earth's long night away ; 
On all benighted nations shine, 
And shine upon this soul of mine, 

Unto the perfect day! 

"WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?" 
"It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little while and 
then vanisheth away." James 4:14. 

ASKED the hooded clouds that monk-like sat 
Upon the benches of the distant hills 
And dropt their countless beads in falling rain; 



I 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



55 



Say ye, before ye change and pass away, — 
For ye were born from haunts of mortal men, 
And from your fields of observation, high, 
And your vast wanderings over lands and seas, 
For well ye know, ivhat is our mortal life? 
Just then the virgin moon, the queen of heaven, 
From out a parted cloud serenely looked, 
And shed upon their bowed and reverent heads 
A radiant benediction soft and sweet. 
They rose and parted as a crowd dismissed, 
But spoke as if from cloven tongues these words, 
(I heard them in the sighing of the wind, — ) 
"Your life is like a vapor or a cloud, 
Appearing for a little while, and then, 
As we do now, it vanisheth away!" 



SOUL SOLITARINESS. 

The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth 
not intermeddle with his joy. Prov. 14:10. 

ALL SOULS must chiefly dwell alone 
Whoever may be near ; 
We hold a chamber all our own, 
Which but to us and God is known, 
Where none may interfere. 

Here, shrouded from all outward gaze, 

Each lives and acts his part; 
What grief upon the spirit preys, 



^6 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

What joy its voiceless music plays 
Ts hidden in the heart. 

The walls with conscious mirrors gleam 

In which all stands revealed ; 
And back and forth forever stream 
The rays of more than solar beam 
And nothing lies concealed. 

Some few reflections outward flow 
Through lips and speaking eyes, 
Which half conceal the souls we know, 
As lights auroral, while they show, 
Still half conceal the skies. 

As mountains sundered by the sea, 
Touch but the bordering foam; 
So 'twixt thy nearest friend and thee 
Flow unseen currents, boundless, free 
In their unfathomed home. 

God only knows those chambers lone 

Though walled about they be; 
The mirrored halls are all his own, 
The soul's shore-lines to him are known 
And all its soundless sea. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 57 



MY ALL. 

OLORD, my best I give to thee 
For all I have is thine; 
Since thou didst give thyself for me, 
O Saviour, all divine ! 

The spikenard of a grateful heart — 

My love's best gift I pour; 
I keep not for myself a part 

But give thee all my store. 

Thou mad'st my captive spirit free, 
Did'st show me thy dear face, 

And with thy saints appointed me 
A portion and a place. 

Since thou hast come into my heart, 
And claimed my ransomed soul, 

I give thee, Saviour, not a part, 
But gladly give the whole. 

"OUR HEART IS ENLARGED." 

TF ONCE a heart, fast closed by sin, 
-*- Will let the waiting Saviour in, 

And give him all its room; 
That heart shall such expansion find, 
And such sweet love for all mankind, 
That all mankind might come. 



c8 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

FOREGLEAMINGS. 

THERE are foregleamings in the heart, 
Of things divine, by sense unseen ; 
We know, but only know in part, 
For clouds and shadows intervene. 

We seek from parts and hints to glean 
The things unseen, in dim surmise; 

And long to loop the veil between 
The hidden glory and our eyes. 

Does not this mean there, then, must be 
A world beyond this world of sense? 

And that the shadows now we see, 
Are but reflections coming thence? 

Now I am sitting by a wall 
Which spans a placid, resting stream; 

The shadows of the unseen fall, 
From distant objects, on its gleam. 

The duplicated heavens bend, 

With many a cloud and tinted glow, 

And through the wavy mirror send 
Their hidden beauty, miles below. 

And flowers and trees and birds let fall 
Their pictures as they sway or pass ; 

And though, unseen, I see them all 
In Nature's horizontal glass. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. eg 

I know some base those forms require, 
Whose summits on my mirror crowd ; 

Some unseen sun must shoot the fire 
Which burns the skirts of yonder cloud. 

A broken shell upon the beach, 

A web-foot printed in the sand, 
May tell of life beyond our reach, 

Though little more we understand. 

A feather, means a wing and air; 

A fin, a fish and watery wave; 
To reason thus we know is fair, 

Though these were all that Nature gave. 

We have a love for things above — 
A love that will not wane or die; 

Is there not, then, a world of love — 
And loved of ours, in realms on high ? 

Or are the hints of things unseen 

To us as sheer delusion given? 
And do they come as blinds between 

Our longing eyes and fancied heaven ? 

Who thus would cheat an aching breast ? 

Who would our trusting hearts deceive ? 
Bereave the soul of what is best, 

And what is noblest to believe ? 



60 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Nay, nay ; man is not made a lie, 
Nor made to covet truth, in vain; 

The hope he has of bliss on high, 
Is not a figment of the brain; 

It is an answer of the part, 

To an integral, perfect whole — 

It is a presage in the heart 
Of what awaits the trusting soul. 

It is a noble dream of youth — 
Our child-life in the home below ; 

A part of that stupendous truth 
Awaiting our full powers to know. 

Then we shall know as we are known, 
Without a shadowing veil between; 

Above our nursery barriers grown, 
We, too, shall see as we are seen. 

Then shall this half eclipse of faith, 
From faded orbs of light now given, 

Shine out, beyond the veil of death, 
In full-orbed perfectness in heaven. 

THE CHRIST-CHILD. 

O AVIOUR thou wast once a child, 
^ Holy, harmless, undefiled, 
Humble was thy human birth, 
When thou earnest down to earth. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 6 1 

Thou didst walk with sinful men, 
But without a spot or stain : 
Tempted, thou didst never yield — 
Be thy grace and strength our shield ! 

Since on tender childhood's head, 
Thy dear holy hands were laid, 
All the children of the race 
Have a larger, nobler place. 

"Suffer them to come to me," 
Draws our parent hearts to thee ; 
With the children, Lord, we come ; 
And for all thy arms have room. 

THE ADVENT OF THE KING. 

A CHRISTMAS HYMN. 

/^OME, long-expected Saviour, come ! 
^-^ Prophets and kings have waited long 
To see thy day and make Thee room, 
And greet Thy advent with a song. 

Abr'am rejoiced to see Thy day, 

And seers and holy men of old 
Gazed through the shadows long and gray, 

To see the promised age of gold. 



62 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Star of the long-expected morn, 
Yea, rather Earth's eternal sun! 

Thy light upon the hills is born, 
Thy reign of glory is begun. 

The silent skies are vocal now, 
Bright angels in a chorus sing; 

The Magi at the manger bow, 

And homage-treasures pay their king. 

The shepherds leave the sky-lit field 
And tinkling folds, with wonder wild, 

To see the Prince of Peace revealed, 
And bow before the Shepherd Child. 

Come, manger King, Thy sceptre take, 
Extend from sea to sea Thy sway, 

The rod of the oppressor break, 
And chase Earth's gloom and wrong away. 

Give Thy good tidings to the poor, 
The broken-hearted sinner heal ; 

Break open every prison door, 
Rend every galling gyve of steel. 

Lead forth the captive slaves of sin, 
And cause the blinded eyes to see; 

The reign of righteousness begin, 
And give the world true liberty. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 6^ 

The bruised, the weak, have suffered long 
Through all these sad and waiting years; 

While giants of successful wrong 

Have heeded not but mocked their tears. 

But Thou wilt break the tyrant's chain, 
And cause the cry of wrong to cease; 

And Thou wilt ease the mourner's pain, 
And give the wounded conscience peace. 

The world heaves now a softer sigh, 
Caressed beneath Thy pierced palm; 

Hope kindles in its tear dimn'd eye, 

And all its troubled thoughts grow calm. 

For Thou hast walked upon our seas, 
And breathed upon out outspread lands, 

And so Thy breath is on the breeze, 
Thy flowers adorn the desert sands. 

And as Thy power and kingdom come, 

And rule the land and rule the sea, 
So shall the barren deserts bloom, 

And Earth's millennial glory be. 

Thou manger Child, Thou infant King, 

We hail Thy lowly, royal birth, 
And join with heavenly choirs to sing 

Thy advent to our waiting earth ! 



64 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

We open temple, heart and home, 
On this Thy hallowed natal day, 

And give Thy coming all our room, 
And all we have to Thy kind sway. 

THE NAMES AND TITLES OF CHRIST. 

List in Teachers' Bible. 

TTOW rich, how various are the names 
-*--*- Of Jesus Christ, our Saviour Lord ! 
What precious titles, honors, claims, 
The Holy Scriptures Him accord ! 

He is the Cornerstone and Head, 

The Prince of Life, The Prince of Peace, 

The First Begotten of the dead, 

The King whose reign shall never cease. 

The image of the unseen God, 
The Holy Child, The Holy One, 

The Shepherd, with his staff and rod; 
The Light, the world's superior Sun. 

The Open Fountain, Living Bread, 
The Fruitful Vine, The Open Door, 

The Church's Rock : her living Head ; 
Her Horn, Ller Hope, forever more. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 65 

He is the bright and Morning Star ; 

The blest and only Potentate, 
The Lord of Hosts, A Man of War ; 

The sinner's only Advocate. 

Melchisedek, Our Great High Priest; 

Anointed of the Holy Ghost; 
Our Rock, Redeemer, Paschal Feast, 

Our Righteousness and only boast. 

Our God with us, Immanuel, 

Jehovah, ever living One; 
Our Ransom from the pit of hell ; 

Both David's Root and David's Son. 

The Faithful Witness, Living Word, 

The Counselor, The Mighty God, 
The Presence Angel of the Lord 

When Israel's hosts the desert trod. 

He is the Life, the Truth, the Way; 

The Resurrection, First and Last, 
Our Consolation, Wisdom, Stay, 

Father of Ages, future, past. 

On Thee my soul I calmly rest ; 

Whate'er in life or death befall 
I know is wisest, kindest, best, 

For Thou, to me, art all in all, 



66 Poems cf Meditation and Reflection. 

CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY. 

U T PRAY that they whom thou hast given me 

-*- May all be one; may all be one in us; 
That they may all be perfected in one, 
As, Father, I am one in them and thee :" 

Thus prayed the Father's well-beloved Son — 
The Shepherd of the universal fold — 
At once our Brother and our great High Priest — 
The Head of the whole family on earth 
And heaven who own and hail the Christ as Lord. 

Thus prayed he at the sacramental feast, 
Upon the night in which he was betrayed, 
Surrounded by his awe-struck, chosen ones, 
To whom, in token of surpassing love, 
He gave the mystic symbols of his death. 

"I pray for them," so ran his tender prayer, 
"And all who through them shall believe on me." 
The jarring strife of sharp, contentious tongues 
About the honors of the paschal feast 
And highest places round the Master's throne, 
Had scarcely ceased to agitate the air 
Which bore to heaven the Savior's holy prayer. 
As painful as the thrust of soldier's spear 
Which rent the fountain of his loving heart, 
Was that unlovely and unholy strife 
Among his chosen and beloved twelve. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 67 

He saw in it that cruel lust of power 
Which in the coming ages of his church 
Would mar its beauty, waste its heavenly power 
And thus impede his mission to the world. 
Yet still in love and hope the Master prayed, 
Nor has his tender supplication failed. 
"1 thank thee, Father, that thou hearest me," 
Is here as true as at the vanquished grave. 

Deep in the fountain of its hidden life 
The universal Church of Christ is one — 
Is one in faith and hope and charity. 
What if the various streams emerging thence 
And spreading on the bosom of the earth 
Shall each in its appointed channel flow — 
Are not the fount and destination one? 
The Church, in spite of all her Babel names, 
In spite of rite and often clashing creed, 
In spite of feeble fellowship and love, 
Is still the earthly family of the Lord 
And has its seat of unity in him. 

Courage, faint heart, the sovereign Master rules : 
List thou, and thou shalt hear the undertone 
Of sad confession and of deep lament 
Through all the several branches of the Church 
For her unhappy strifes and party feuds, 
While on her knees, with forehead in the dust, 
She sobs her echo to the Saviour's prayer. 



68 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Courage, sad heart, the one great Shepherd lives 
He watches, guards and leads and feeds his flock. 
His own shall ever hear and know his voice, 
And he shall lead them into pastures green, 
And none shall snatch the feeblest from his hands. 
Not one shall ever stray beyond his care, 
Or unsought wander in the desert wild. 

And all those ''other sheep," unknown of men, 
Will he, in his appointed way and time, 
In whitening drifts, bring into his one fold. 
Then shall the Saviour's thrice-repeated prayer — 
Re-echoed by his severed Church below — 
Be answered in the unity and love 
Of all who own and hail the Christ as Lord. 

GETHSEMANE. 

LO, IN the garden kneeling, 
' List to the Master's cry ; 
Three times he's heard appealing — 

"O, let this cup pass by, 
Yet, if it be thy pleasure, 
That, I, thine only Son, 
Shall drain its fullest measure; 
Father, Thy will be done !" 

Dear Saviour, I am praying, 
In my Gethsemane; 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 69 

My faltering lips are saying : 

"O, pass this cup from me !" 
Yet in my human sorrow, 

Clinging to thee alone, 
Thy prayer my soul would borrow : 

"Father, Thy will be clone !" 

Thy prayer is an evangel 

In my deep agony; 
It comes as if an angel 

Were sent to comfort me. 
No longer now appealing, 

As one unhelped, alone, 
But say with chastened feeling: 

"Father, Thy will be done !" 

"ALONE, YET NOT ALONE." 

John 16:32; Isa. 63:1-4. 

T)ETRAYED, denied, forsaken by his own, 
**-* The Son of Man, alone, the winepress trod; 
A deep, mysterious darkness veils the throne, 
And hides, awhile, the very face of God. 

He looked for help; in heaven, in earth was none, 
While grapes of wrath his crimson vesture dyed; 

Left in a vacant universe alone, 
The Son of God for us was crucified. 



yo Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



Alone ? He sees the travail of his soul, 
A countless host of new-born souls arise ; 

From all the ages and from pole to pole, 
They throng the earth and overhanging skies. 

Alone? Behind the heathen on the hill. 
More than twelve legions, from the throne, 

Of armed angels stand to do his will, 
And rescue him who suffers thus alone. 

Alone? What if the Father seemed estranged 
Awhile, for sin of ours, from his own Son ? 

He loves him with eternal love unchanged, 
And though alone, he leaves him not alone. 

Dear Saviour, in our hour of deep distress, 
When we are launching forth to worlds unknown ; 

In spite of all past sins and faithlessness, 
Be near, so near, and leave us not alone ! 

"IF CHRIST BE NOT RISEN." 

ulVfOT risen!" then the stifled breath 
-*- * Which utters that despairing word 

Seems frozen on the lip of death 
Above the gravestone of the Lord. 

"Not risen !" then what means that life 
Of holy sweetness, patience, love? 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. yj 

What means a world with passions rife, 
What mean the peaceful heavens above? 

"Not risen!" then the grave is all 

Naught, then, but darkness, death and gloom ; 

Love, Hope and Faith, wrapt in a pall, 
Sink in all-engulfing tomb. 

But Christ is risen from the dead ; 

Death and despair lie where he fell; 
He lives, our ever-living Head; 

He holds the keys of "Death and Hell." 

And we, because he ever lives, 

Shall live and reign in life, for aye; 
This pledge His resurrection gives; 

And makes all days an Easter-day. 

"I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS." 

O AID Christ, when seeing the distress 
^ His parting gave the chosen few : 
"I will not leave you comfortless, 
For I will come again for you." 

"But yet and for a little while, 

I leave you to prepare a place; 
Ye weep, but in your weeping smile, 

For ye shall see me face to face." 



72 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

"Yes, Master, we thy words receive, 
With utter joy and thankfulness; 

They cheer us while they also grieve; 
They comfort, but they give distress. 

That, through thy Spirit, thou art here. 
And with us evermore shalt be, 

Cannot but all our sadness cheer, 
Until, again, thy face we see; 

But still remembering thy "I will," 
And thy mysterious "Little zvhile," 

We wait in tearful silence still, 

And through our tears look up and smile. 

"MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE.' 

Matt. 4:4. 

THUS he who all our nature shares, 
With all its burdens, wants and needs ; 
Alike in wondrous words and deeds, 
This most suggestive truth declares, 
(So faintly by the wisest known), 
Man shall not live by bread alone. 

Yea, he who taught our lips to say : 

"Give us this day our daily bread"; 

And who himself the fainting fed, 
By thousands, in the desert way, 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 73 

Said, when most faint from hunger grown, 
Man shall not live by bread alone. 

When, by deep need and Satan tried, 

To turn the desert stone to bread, 

He might have there his hunger fed — 
If only Hunger may decide — 

As easy as, by power divine, 

He turned the water into wine. 

But he who is the "Bread of Life" — 

The "Living Bread" sent down from heaven — 

God's manna to the hungry given — 
Would not surrender in the strife, 

Where Appetite the right may crave, 

To bind the conscience as its slave. 

The Lord would have it understood, 

That man is more than bread and wine; 

That he hath elements divine, 
And bears the image of his God, 

And hence cannot be fully fed. 

From any earthly tables spread. 

Man hath deep thought, a heart of love ; 

Hath yearnings to be good and wise ; 

Hath wings of faith on which to rise 
To life and light in realms above, 

And so hath longings to be fed, 

With ever-living, heavenly bread. 



74 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

He craves divine companionship; 

He hungers for the bread of God ; 

He fain would eat of angels' food ; 
He would those very fountains sip 

Which issue from beneath the throne; 

So, cannot live by bread alone. 

Then give him truth to make him wise ; 

And, O, from fountain heads above, 

Give him deep draughts of heavenly love, 
As fits one native to the skies, 

Thus, only thus, will he decide, 

His soul is fully satisfied. 

Thus fed, he hungers not again; 

He drinks of life and thirsts no more; 

But rather from a boundless store, 
Like some deep fountain in a plain, 

He pours refreshing streams abroad, 

Like rivers from the throne of God. 



THE VISIONS OF YOUTH AND THE DREAMS 
OF AGE. 

"Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall 
dream dreams." Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17. 

M^HE young, with their future before them, 
■*■ With senses so active and keen, 
And morning's bright heavens bent o'er them, 
Are drawn to the things that are seen. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 75 

They leave the "deep things" to the sages, 
Who find in abstractions their themes ; 

Who, bending o'er Wisdom's stored pages, 
Seem lost in the depth of their dreams. 

But young men have visions of faces, 

Aglow in each mountain and star; 
All summits are radiant with graces, 

Which beckon and call from afar. 

The dewdrops which sprinkle the morning, 

With jewels of green and of gold, 
Are hints of the brighter adorning, 

Reserved for their temples when old. 

And so in a future, ideal, 

Aglow with the treasures of truth, 
Are seen the bright forms of the real, 

With crowns in their hands for our youth. 

But Age has gone by the Elysian, 

Which looked down the Morning's long slope ; 
Has compassed and tested the vision, 

Seen through the bright optics of Hope ; 

Has soberly sounded the Seeming, 

For jewels of wisdom and truth; 
Has found in the depths of its dreaming, 

The substance of visions in youth ; 



yd Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Has found in the glowing ideal — 

The present and future between — 
The proof and the pledge of the real, 

Substantial, eternal, unseen. 

It knows the enchanting Elysian, 

Is not an illusion of youth, 
But, whether in dream or in vision, 

It is the reflection of truth. 

And so to the soul's deepest questions, 

Concerning the future of being, 
Are given great hints and suggestions, 

In spiritual dreaming and seeing. 

WHAT IS MAN? 

Two things there are which the oftener and more steadily 
I consider them fill the mind with an ever new and an ever 
rising admiration and reverence — the starry heavens above and 
the moral law within. In the former the first view of a count- 
less number of worlds annihilates as it were, my importance as 
an animal product; the aspect of the other on the contrary, 
elevates my worth as an intelligence even without limit. — 
Emanuel Kant. 

T7"EA what is man ! a transient mote, 
"*■ Compared with yonder tiniest star? 
And what with those great orbs which float 
Across the azure fields afar? 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



77 



How shrunken seems man's pride and boast ; 

His scope of action and of time 
Compared with yonder starry host, 

So numerous, brilliant and sublime ! 

How fleet is life's eventful hour 

Beneath those everlasting eyes ! 
How poor are kingly pomp and power 

When measured by the boundless skies ! 

Where are those tribes of favored birth, 
Across the waste of ages driven, 

Once numbered by the sands of earth 
And counted by the stars of heaven? 

Their glory and their pride are gone, 

From their own lands they roam estranged, 

While those celestial tribes live on 
Undimmed, unwasted and unchanged. 

So let it be; but what are stars 

And sun-kings of the starry realms ? 

What are their flashing zones and bars 
And all their royal diadems ? 

They're matter only, soulless, dead, 
And eyes have they but cannot see ; 

Choiceless their golden tracks they tread 
But know not whence or what they be. 



j 8 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

They hither drop their silver lines 

But fathom not this midnight gloom, 

They run the race their law assigns 
But know not why they go or come. 

They never question, "what is man?" 
Nor ask themselves what they may be ; 

They neither know our little span 
Nor grasp their own immensity. 

But studious man with thought-lit eyes 
Peers through the realms of ether far, 

And takes the measure of the skies 
And names and maps out every star. 

He formulates the laws of force, 
Binds planets to their central suns, 

Defines the errant comet's course 
And calculates the course he runs. 

So, man is greater, grander far 

Than burnings suns and star-dust dim ; 

He knows and measures moon and star, 
But they know not nor measure him. 

They serve, but not because 'tis right, 
They fear and know no power above 

Their eyes, tho' full of sweetest light, 
Can neither look nor answer love. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 79 

But man is of a nobler birth, 

God's breath to him a soul hath given, 

He walks at once the king of earth, 

And climbs the starry heights of heaven. 

But what is vaster, grander still, 
He reads the soul that reads the skies ; 

Bows at the inner throne of Will, 
And looks his Conscience in its eyes; 

And feels awe-struck as one who wakes 
Where angel feet the stones have trod, 

And where a cloud of glory breaks 
From visions of the throne of God. 

LIGHT ON LIFE'S BATTLE. 

''Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon and thou moon in the 
valley of Ajalon." Josh. 10:12. 

NOT only for the son of Nun 
Have sun and moon stood still; 
They tarry yet for every one 

Who battles with a will, 
And stay until his work is done. 

No warrior counts the march of time, 

Or lapse of moon or star, 
Or when they sink or when they climb, 

While waging earnest war, 
Or fired with ardor all sublime. 



80 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

For him the sun on Gibeon 
Still stays to give him light; 

The moon still smiles from Ajalon 
On warriors for the Right, 

And waits until the battle's won. 

When souls with holy ardor rise 

To run a glorious race, 
They catch the light of other skies, 

And feel upon their face 
The glow of their transcendent prize. 

The earth then sinks beneath their feet, 

They tower as they run; 
They catch the light, they feel the heat 

Of some perpetual sun 
Which stands until their work's complete. 

Perhaps, 'twas thus the son of Nun 
Saw not the light go down, 

Until his gallant fight was won, 
And seized the victor's crown, 

Beneath a stationery sun. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



WHOM SHALL WE CROWN ? 

'Let Merit crowns, and Justice honors give." — Dryden. 
TT7HOM shall we crown? the brave the fair, 

The beautiful, the strong; 
The patient ones who meekly bear 
Or those who combat wrong? 

Whom shall we crown ? the man who gives 

From his abundant store; 
Or him who gratefully receives — 

God's humble, thankful poor? 

The noble man who bravely climbs 

With self-reliant tread ; 
Or him who helps the weak betimes 

To scale the heights o'erhead? 

The pioneer who danger scorns 

To find a better way; 
Or him who only plucks the thorns 

From paths where lost feet stray ? 

Whom can we crown ? not those who crave 

A coronet of gold — 
A splendid toy which many a knave 

Has basely bought or sold. 



82 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

We bring not e'en a laurel wreath 

Nor one of ivy twined ; 
Such fading trifles seem beneath 

The worth we seek to find. 

Our crown is one of honest praise 

For honest duty done ; 
We crown the life which bears the blaze 

Of Virtue's noonday sun. 

We crown alike the suffering good 
And nobly conquering brave; 

Those who have want severely stood 
And those who largely gave. 

We lay our reverent wreath of praise 

Wherever praise is due, 
Alike in low or lofty ways 

On all the good and true. 

The world is full of arts and wiles, 

And cruel oft its crowns ; 
We dread alike its purchased smiles 

And its unfeeling frowns. 

Our crown is for substantial worth 
Nor ask we whence it came, 

We ask not after blood nor birth 
Nor genius, wealth nor fame. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 83 

We only seek our crown to lay 

On every worthy one 
To whom the righteous Judge will say, 

"Servant of God, Well done!" 

HEROES, MARTIAL AND MORAL. 

THE patriot and soldier whose heart does not quail 
In the fierce battle-line where many must bleed, 
But fearlessly enters the thick leaden hail, 
Is crowned by the world as a hero indeed. 

But is he not braver who follows the Right, 
Because it is duty, though dying unknown ; 

And combats the evil with courage and might, 
Uncheered by companions and marching alone ? 

Yes, hero is he and right loyal of soul, 

Who welcomes the battle when Conscience commands, 
Rejoicing to answer the call of the roll, 

And girt with Truth's armor, for righteousness stands. 

But oft is he so in advance of his age, 

His greatness seems dwarfed to the ranks in his rear, 
And not till they come to his loftier stage, 

Does th' height of his moral proportions appear. 



84 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



Oft cursed by his people, reviled and opposed, 
He gently will suffer detraction and wrong; 

But still presses on till his mission is closed, 
In sorrow most joyful, in weakness made strong. 

The mere martial hero with daring is fired. 

By numbers and noise in his rush to the fray; 
The hero of Conscience, by duty inspired, 

Will go all alone if the Right leads the way. 

No trumpet, no cannon is needed to fire 

The embers of force in his languishing frame; 

The fair form of Duty alone can inspire 
The love of his heart to a passionate flame. 

The sword of the hero who conquers by might, 
May carve for its wearer a bright crimson name ; 

And cut in a tablet, all polished and white, 
A list of the deeds which establish his fame. 

Yet rust shall discolor and tarnish his sword, 
And Time's envious tooth his marble consume; 

Corroding the record, leave only the word ; 
"Hie jacet;" the rest is all lost in the tomb. 

While Truth's stainless weapons, immortal and bright, 
Shall hang in the halls of the hero above ; 

For th' battles he fought were contentions for Right, 
And th' triumphs he won were victories of Love. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 85 

CHARITY INVOKED. 

CHARITY, visit me, 
Grace of the noble three ; 
My spirit welcomes thee — 
Come, holy love ! 

Faith, Hope, these give us peace; 
Thy power shall still increase, 
When these in sight shall cease, — 
Thou'lt reign above. 

CHRISTIAN PATIENCE. 

OWEET Patience is as rare, as fair, 
^ And strong as she is good ; 
Though much applauded everywhere, 
She's lttle understood. 

She is not stoically firm, 

Nor passively inert; 
She calmly bides affliction's term, 

But not as one unhurt. 

And so like Love she suffers long, 

Is gentle and is kind, 

She seeks to be resigned. 
And when enduring pain and wrong 



86 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Sweet Patience hath an iron will 
And heart with zeal aglow ; 

Yet on God's anvil can lie still 
And take the hardest blow. 

She deems not pain a natural good, 

She is of wiser mind; 
But knows, in ways not understood, 

It is for good designed. 

And so in trouble she is calm, 
Can sleep on rolling waves ; 

For every pain she hath a psalm 
While trusting Him who saves. 

And if the Saviour tarry long 

She waits His coming still ; 
The soul that trusts she knows is strong 

To bear or conquer ill. 

She asks not for the ripened grain 

Till summer seasons come ; 
Knows that the sunshine and the rain 

Precede the "harvest home." 

She knows the growth of moments brief, 

A moment's time endures; 
So asks not for the ripened sheaf 

Till time the grain matures. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 87 

And so with calm and hopeful eye, 

Not always free from tears, 
She scans the distant as the nigh, 

Far down the coming years. 

She knows with God a thousand years 

Are as a single day ; 
And so no disappointment fears, 

Whatever the delay. 

O gentle Power, teach us to wait, 

And waiting to be strong ; 
Show how submission can abate 

The present stress of wrong ! 

"THE GOLDEN AGE." 

/"> REAT prophets, poets, bards of old, 
^-* Have chanted one sweet melody, 
About a glorious "Age of Gold," 
As something past or yet to be. 

One note is clear from every school, 

Since schools of thought or song began. 

That nothing but "The Golden Rule" 
Can bring "The Golden Age" to man. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



THE LARGER PLAN. 

A PLAN is in this life of mine, 
Despite its sin and wrong; 
Beyond my will a hand divine 
Has led my steps along. 

Pve traveled oft a thorny way 

Which I could not refuse, 
But mercies followed, day by day, 

More than I dared to choose. 

If, in my youth, my heart proposed 
Which way my steps should tend ; 

I've found, in truth, a Will disposed 
The journey and the end. 

Man's way, I find, is not in man, 

To order and control; 
There lies above his partial plan 

A larger, grander whole. 

THE MEASURE OF LIFE. 

METHUSALEH lived, — and this beside,- 
Nine hundred years and sixty-nine; 
Had sons and daughters, and he died, — 
The record adds no other line. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 89 

Like some huge saurian on the strand 

Of some far-off, forgotten shore, 
He left these traces in the sand 

Of his vast wanderings, nothing more. 

For only thirty years and three 
One lived whose steps mark every shore 

He died, — the man of Galilee, 
And lo, He lives for evermore. 

SOWING IN HOPE. 

OOW in the morn thy seed, 
^ At eve stay not thy hand," 
Nor sign nor omen heed, 
Heed only God's command. 

Full-handed seed corn throw 

Upon the furrowed field, 
Nor wait in doubt to know 

Which most at last shall yield. 

God asks thee not for rain, 

For sunshine, dew or shower, 
Not e'en for ripened grain — 

These are beyond thy power. 



go Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

He asks thee but to sow 
And water with thy tears, 

To guard the blades that grow 
And then dismiss thy fears. 

He works with us by day 
And watches while we sleep ; 

He hears us when we pray, 
And comforts when we weep. 

When comes the harvest-home 
For gathering in the ears; 

Then shall the sowers come 
Forgetful of their tears. 

LEARNING TO SYMPATHIZE. 

T USED to think my brother's woe 
•*■ Had deeply touched me as my own, 
I know for him my tears did flow, 
My heart responded to his groan. 

Ah well, I mind me of that day 
When sorrow us together drew, 

And how he bent to lips to clay 
And wept a long and sad adieu. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



91 



His trembling hand in mine he placed, 
And leaned his burden on my breast ; 

My arm sustained his sinking waist, 
And choked expression told the rest. 

But never till the cloven sward 

Had parted to receive my own, 
Did sorrow touch its deepest chord, 

Or draw a fully answering tone. 

Why, even Christ was perfect made 

Through sufferings as our great High Priest ; 
And every burden on us laid 

Is His, the greatest and the least. 

Now if a sorrow break my heart, 

I know I suffer not alone ; 
My Saviour bears the greater part, 

i\s if it were His very own. 

And gives me grace to bear the rest, 
While sweetly walking by my side ; 

And as I lean upon His breast, 
I feel my sorrow sanctified. 

I've heard His whisper in my soul ; 

"Believe in God, believe in me ; 
Upon My strength thy burden roll, 

And I will bear the load for thee." 



92 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

And thus in weakness I am strong, 

And find in trouble calmest rest; 
My murmuring lips break into song, 

And gladness thrills my aching breast. 

THE SILENCE OF THE DEPARTED. 

>" i^HE lips of the vanished in silence are sealed, 
•*- And sealed are the portals through which they have 

passed ; 
No whisper, no token has ever revealed, 

What followed the moment we mourned at their last. 

O, where do the sleepers awaken again? 

Where blushes the morning that crimsons their sky ? 
To us who, alas ! in these shadows remain, 

They cannot or will not return to reply. 

So open, so affable were they when here, 

That if their fond spirits are still in our range, 

Their posthumous silence, wherever their sphere, 
To sorrowing loved ones is painful and strange. 

It may be our air is so murky and dense, 

It yields to no touch that the vanished can give, 

Or maybe so dull is our bodily sense, 

That we are as dead to the loved ones who live. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



93 



The web of the worm, with a soft, silver fold, 

In wrapping the leaves of the sweet-budding Spring, 

Encloses the weaver but shuts out the gold, 

Which sparkles and burns on the butterfly's wing. 

Perhaps it is better; if we could but find 
The vanished of earth in their loftier sphere, 

That might the sweet ties of the present unbind 
And hinder the duties imperative here. 

It may be the burdens we properly bear, 

Would pass to their shoulders, so true to the last ; 

O, how could we ask them our journey to share, 
Return and retrace all the desert they've passed? 

But are they not near us, a witnessing cloud, 
With sympathies sweet and with interest intense, 

And close to the race-course invisibly crowd 
Where hang the great issues of life in suspense ? 

Ah yes ; let us think, were our senses unsealed, 
The mountains around us would kindle with fire ; 

Bright hands would reach forward assistance to yield, 
And whispers of hope would our courage inspire? 

And high over all, at the end of the race, 

Our conquering Captain in glory should stand, 

With cheer for our hearts in the smiles of His face, 
And crowns for our heads in His nail-pierced hand. 



94 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



Accept, brother pilgrim, this world as thy home, 
And labor to make it the brightest and best; 

Yet ready to answer the call, "Welcome, come, 

And hear through the silence the songs of the blest !" 

"HE SHALL SIT AS A REFINER." 

Mai. 3-3- 

A RE you in the furnace glow? 
^~*- Feel you the refiner's fire? 
God, dear one, would have you know 
That, perhaps, some tie below, 
Keeps you back from something higher. 

If so, then a thousand fold, 
Better in His searching flame 
Than all wealth of gems and gold 
And whatever else can hold 
In the heart an idol's claim. 

PEARLS OR TALENTS? 

TTOARDING all your precious pearls, 
■*-■*■ In their dainty casket fine? 
Hating him who heedless hurls 
Such fair jewels to the swine? 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



95 



Fear, dear one, the fate of those 
Who their talents hide away ; 

Fear what Judgment may disclose, 
And what Jesus Christ may say. 

WEEDS AND DEEDS. 

A I MTHING anise, mint and cummin, 
-*■ Counting carefully the seeds, 
Giving God His due proportion 
Even of the common weeds. 

Ah, how sharply conscientious 
Was the old-time Pharisee ! 

What a ritual microscopist 
And a lynx-eyed saint was he ! 

The orthodox phylactery, 

Bound above his practiced eyes. 

Varied not a filament 

From the due sectarian size. 

All who strenuous of the letter, 
Vestment, tonsure, liturgy, 

Accent, symbol, shibboleth, 
Here may learn their pedigree. 



96 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Tithing anise, mint and cummin, 

Grading the phylactery, 
Settling still the awful difference 

'Twixt the tweedledum and dee. 

Ah, how strive the holy rabbis 
In their zeal about the seeds; 

Giving God His due proportion 
Even of the common weeds ! 

While by every wayside lying, 
Stript and wounded, almost dead, 

Multitudes of men are dying, 
Asking oil and wine and bread; 

Asking friendly hands and shelter, 
Healing from their wounds and sin, 

Bring them, Samaritan neighbors, 
To the hospitable inn. 

Leave the anise, mint and cummin, 
God is asking not for weeds, 

But for mercy, justice, kindness, 
And for charitable deeds. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. gy 

"HE THAT WINNETH SOULS IS WISE." 
Prov. 11:30. 

NOUGHT in the wondrous Proverbs read, 
More patent, pointed proof supplies, 
That he who made them was most wise, 
Than what is here so briefly said ; 
The highest wisdom, on the whole, 
Has he who wins a human soul. 

There's not a treasure on the earth, 

In pearly sea, in ambient air, 

Can with a single soul compare, 
In its supreme, transcendent worth; 

And hence to win it as a prize, 

Proclaims the winner truly wise. 

The soul must be released and changed ; 

For it hath been ensnared, enslaved; 

Its inmost nature is depraved ; 
It is from God and truth estranged : 

It must be won or it is lost, 

On endless, aimless billows tossed. 

What higher, holier work is done 

For time and for eternity ; 

For God and for humanity; 
By him who hath himself been won, 

Than other souls to woo and win, 

From error, bondage, death and sin ? 



o8 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

He who this holy work essays, 
At once takes partnership with God; 
With Jesus Christ, who meekly trod 

Earth's thorny, dreary, desert ways, 
In search of those, by sin controlled, 
Who've wandered from the Shepherd's fold. 

And in this sweet, divine employ, — 

However hard the trying task, 

The sacrifices it may ask, — 
The worker shares the heavenly joy 

Which breaks in rapture from the throne, 

When sinners are for glory won. 

¥ea, all who thus are truly wise; 
Who ruined, erring sinners bless, 
By turning them to righteousness, 

Shall shine as do the outspread skies; 
Yea, shall its brightest stars transcend, 
In worlds and ages without end. 

MEMORIALS: PHARAOH'S AND MARY'S. 

T> ETWEEN the Desert and the Nile, 
'*-' The pyramid of Cheops stands, 
A dateless, gloomy, mystic pile, 

Built by some tyrant Pharaoh's hands. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 99 

Here ancient Egypt mummified, 

Sits like a queen upon her throne, 
In stolid and perpetual pride, 

Herself a hieroglyph in stone. 

While in old Cheop's stony heart 

The master builder's bones are laid, 
In solitary gloom apart 
As if of all mankind afraid. 

And well might conscience wake his fears, 

For Cheop's self a witness stands 
That slaves shed here unpitied tears, 

And wrought with unrequited hands. 

So every monumental pile, 

Built by oppression for a name, 
Stands like the stoneheaps of the Nile— 

A witness to the builder's shame. 

I'd rather have the monument 

Of Mary's precious spikenard poured 

With her unbounded love's intent 
Upon the body of her Lord: 

To spread forever with His name, 

Which gives it all its praise and worth, 

To breathe a fragrant, vital flame 
Around this cold and selfish earth, 

LofO. 



IOO Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Than all the monuments beside, 
Of brass or gold or hills of stone, 

Reared to man's prowess or his pride, 
Inscribed with his poor name alone. 

Old Pharaoh and his myriad slaves, — 
He in his prison house of stone, 

They in their drifting, sandy graves, — 
Sleep both forgotten and unknown. 

While Mary with her living Lord 
Holds her sweet place, still as of old, 

And shall, long as His gracious word 
Around the glad earth shall be told. 

BENEDICTION. 
Heb. 20:22. 
IV yf AY that great Shepherd of the sheep, 
■*-VX Who brought our Lord to life again, 
Your hearts and minds in comfort keep, 
And by His Spirit in you reign; 

And through the covenant of His blood, 
His work of grace in you fulfill, 
Until, established in all good, 

You know and do His perfect will; 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 101 

And thus until your wanderings cease, 
May He your every step attend, 

And bring you safe to realms of peace, 
In worlds and ages without end ! 

"INTER EQUITANDUM;" or "RESTING ON THE 
ROAD." 

T N the modern renaissance, 

■*- Leader in that age sublime, 

Stood one worker in advance 

Of the great men of his time — , 

Worthy of the name he bore — , 

Of the crown, uncrowned, he wore — , 

Printer, scholar, artist, sage, 

Ornament of any age, 

Robert Stephens* dear to fame, 

Is the master workman's name. 

"Inter equitandum" wrcught, 

(As our biblicists rehearse,) 

This great man that scheme of thought 

Which gives us our Bible-verse. 

"Inter equitandum" means, 

(So translates great Stephen's son.) 

That short stop which intervenes 

'Twixt dav's ridings, one bv one. 



•Stephen's, gr., Stephanos, a crown. 



102 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

When great Stephens sought repose 
From the clamor and the din, 
Of his persecuting foes, 
In some quiet, way-side inn. 
There, secluded in his flight, 
And there, "resting on the road,*' 
Toiled the good man, day and night 
Working on the Word of God. 

When the sacred Word we read, 
Seeking strength to bear our load, 
Rest we now, as we have need, 
When upon the Word we feed, 
Equitandum, on the road; 
In some quiet, way-side inn, 
Rest we from the strife without — , 
From the clamor and the din 
Of our darkness and our doubt ; 
Reading, resting, we rehearse, 
Thought by thought and page by page, 
Using Stephen's happy verse 
Till we reach our final stage. 

So, to me, a verse of song, 
"Inter equitandum," wrought, 
Oft hath cheered my step along, 
Made me hopeful, brave and strong, 
Sweetened heart and brightened thought; 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 103 

Gave me in my labor rest, 
And my soul an upward spring; 
Gave to aspiration zest, 
And to Fancy sweep of wing; 
Thus I've rested on the road, 
From the strife, without, within, 
In a rhythmic-built abode, 
In a verse-wrought, wayside inn. 

LUTHER IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

NOW in this century's sunset glow, 
As back we look four hundred years, 
We see what only time can show, 
How great the Saxon monk appears. 

Compared with him, "where are the wise? 

The vain disputers of the world ?" 
They've sunken never more to rise 

To that great height from which they're hurled. 

Wliere now is Charles, whose sceptred hand 
Ruled, by his might, two worlds alone? 

Who trembles now at his command ? 
Or bows obeisance to his throne? 

Who dreads Pope Leo's curse and ban? 
What Cajetan, what Miltitz thought, 



104 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



Is deemed by every free-born man 
As less than vanity and nought. 

Where now is Eck of Ingoldstadt, 
That union of the fox and lamb? 
And where that pliant, piquant scribe, 
The learned sage of Rotterdam? 

They live but a reflected life, 
As dial shadows of their time, 

And serve to register their strife 
Of impotence with Truth sublime. 

While Luther like a rising Alp, 
Grows higher as the years go by, 

And like a summit seen afar, 
Appears to mingle with the sky. 

A stream may wash an Alpine base. 
And see the summer's flowers decay, 

Yet hold the mountain's mirrored face, 
Nor let one feature float away. 

So Luther, mirrored in the flood, 

Which sweeps the transcient drift aside, 

Has changeless 'mid all changes stood, 
And thus in future shall abide. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



!°5 



LUTHER ON PILATE'S STAIRCASE. 

"Then I felt born again, like a new man. I entered through 
the open doors into the very Paradise of God," thus spake 
Luther afterwards of himself when he recited how, when he 
was at Rome, he heard as if an angel spake to him whilst on 
his knees the fabled stair-case of Pilate the text of St. Paul, 
"The just shall live by faith." This reformed Luther and by 
this he reformed the Church. 

TTARDLY the German pilgrim fares, 
**■-*" O'erborn with inward shame and grief 
Whilst on his knees in tears and prayers 
He slowly climbs the fabled stairs 
In hope of finding heart relief. 

Now thro' his soul a strong voice speaks, 

It seems to sweep away his breath, 
Each band, like prisoned Peter's breaks, 
As from a sleep of death he wakes 

To hear, "The just shall live by faith." 

As if the fabled stairs of stone 

Had lengthened to the skies away, 
Or had to Bethel's ladder grown — 
They seemed to touch the very Throne 

And glowed with a supernal day. 

The German Monk is born anew, 

He feels the Spirit's quickening breath, 
A pierced hand the arrow drew 



lo6 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Which smote his wounded conscience through 
And he is saved from sin and death. 

And never thro' his inmost soul 

Did these sweet words forget to sound ; 

The faith which made the Saxon whole 

He sought to preach from pole to pole 
And spread the darkened world around. 

The Reformation Church was there, 
She kneeled with him upon the stone, 

She bowed with him in faith and prayer, 

In shame and sorrow on the stair 

And with him touched the heavenly Throne. 

O ye who climb some stairs of stone, 
Who feel the inward pangs of death 

Who Luther's peace have never known, 

Discard all merit of your own — 
"The just can only live by faith." 

UNVEILING OF THE LUTHER MONUMENT, 
WASHINGTON, D. C., MAY 24, 1884. 

UNVEIL the hero, let him stand 
With us, as in the Fatherland, 
A way-mark in the march of time ; 
Unveil him whose own hand unveiled 
The chained Word and hell assailed 
With faith and courage all sublime. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



107 



What if the rudeness of his age 
Lent roughness to his noble rage 

And bluntness to his knightly sword ; 
He still no selfish battle fought, 
His mighty deeds in God were wrought 

And in reliance on His Word. 

Here, with the Bible in his hand, 

He on this granite shaft shall stand, — 

A glory in this capital, — 
Long as Potomac's silvery wave 
Shall glide beside Mt. Vernon's grave 

And our great hero's name recall. 

Great Luther and great Washington ! 
Columbia hails Germania's son 

As one with him in lofty aim : 
He fought for us beyond the sea; 
He made our Saxon fathers free, 
And free their children hither came. 

With Luther's Brftle in their hands, 
They took possession of these lands 

And here built wiser than they knew : 
Bound only by the Ocean's foam 
And heaven's overarching dome, 

They to a mighty people grew. 



108 Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Their Magna Charta, all divine, 
Lies, Luther, in that hand of thine, 

Fast held but grandly free : 
The volume 'neath thy clenched hand, 
Shall still instruct and shield the land. 

And make it one from sea to sea. 

THE DYING WORDS OF LUTHER. 

"In raanus tnas commendi spiritum meum, redemisti me, 
Domine, Deus veritatis." Ps. 31:5. 

OERVANT of God, thy race is run. 
^ Thy heaven-appointed work is done, 
Now, like a glorious setting sun. 
Sink to thy rest. 

And sinking here thou dost but rise 
Beyond the sun, beyond the skies. 
To realms unseen by mortal eyes, 
Among the blest. 

The earth still holds thy after-glow. 
And twilight splendors onward flow 
To mark the centuries, as they go, 
Led on by thee. 

Of those who from our world have gone, 
To stand before the great white throne, 
None labored more to make Christ known, 
Or make men free. 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



1 09 



And sheltered by His pierced hand, 
Thy fearless soul, at His command, 
Sprang up before His throne to stand 
And see His face. 

In thy last hour its glory beamed, 
As when o'er Pilate's stairs it streamed, 
And thou didst know thyself redeemed, 
By God's free grace. 

What though with us thy honored head, 
Lies in the chamber of the dead, 
The living nations feel the tread 
Of Luther yet. 

Thy word and labor shall endure, 
Thy monumental place is sure, 
And thy great name and fame secure 
From shafts of hate. 

And O, when life for us shall end, 
And friend, on earth, shall part with friend, 
God help us also to commend 
Our souls to Him! 

We too shall triumph over death, 
If justified by Luther's faith, 
Which also "full assurance" hath 
Of immortality. 



IIO Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

LUTHER'S WORK TESTED BY TIME. 

WELL-NIGH four hundred years agone, 
Great Luther, builder of his time, 
Reared on the "sure foundation Stone," 
A work of truth and faith sublime. 

From vain self-tortures, worn and thin, 
He turned for life to Christ's own death, 

And found the pledge of pardoned sin, 
The peace of justifying faith. 

No need henceforth of "Pilate's stairs," 
Since he on Christ ascended stood; 

Nor Tetzel's poor indulgence wares, 
Nor popish "good works," vainly good. 

He knew the righteousness of Christ; 

The cleansing of His precious blood ; 
Their merit all his need sufficed; 

Their virtue made his good works good. 

His hunger found the "living bread"; 

The fount of life leaped at his feet ; 
He on the heavenly manna fed ; 

He drank the "living waters" sweet. 

Out of a well-persuaded heart, 

With more than thunder voice he spoke ; 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



Ill 



The gates of brass he rent apart — 
The prison bars of souls he broke. 

The chained Bible of his youth 

Flies, trumpet-tongued, from sea to sea ; 
Benighted millions learn the truth; 

The truth makes captive millions free. 

With tongue of flame, with ceaseless pen, 
He rouses up his rugged race, 

And bids them think and act as men, 
Made free by Christ's redeeming grace. 

At Augsburg, Worms, at famed Spires, 
The people speak, protest, are free; 

Build their own altars, strike the fires 
Which burn henceforth for liberty. 

The modern centuries, ridged with flame, 
Their forward guiding beacons throw, 

And nations now of every name 
Walk in the splendor of their glow. 

Great Luther, honored man of God ! 

We grasp thy strong Germanic hand, 
And feel since thou the earth hast trod, 

Thy labor blesses every land. 



112 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



REFORMATION DAY, OCTOBER 31, 15 17. 

npHIS is the Reformation day, — 

•*■ The wide world's jubilee; 
The Bible bound, now speeds away 
To make the nations free. 



It takes the wings of every wind; 

It floats on every flood, 
And tells, in tongues of all mankind, 

The wondrous works of God. 

It sails in Pilgrim ships afar 

To lands beyond the sea; 
It is their guide, their polar star, 

The pilot of the free. 

It rears their altars, builds the State, 

Beyond the tyrant's rod; 
Where, unalarmed by royal hate, 

They freely worship God. 

The Bible at the fire-side 

And in the closet read ; 
In childhood's ears, at marriage feasts 

And burials of the dead ; 



Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 



1*3 



In church, in school, in prison cell, 

In legislative hall, 
Lives in our life, where'er we dwell, 

The heart and pulse of all. 



E 



FRATERNITY. 

"Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
dwell together in unity." Ps. 123:1. 

ARTH has few charms so rich and rare, 

Or scenes so precious and so fair, 

As brethren who agree; 

How good, how pleasant thus to dwell, 

Where love-enkindled bosoms swell 

With mutual charity ! 

'Tis like the morning's fragrant dew, 
On Hermon's sunlit summit, blue, 

On Zion's sacred hill ; 
For there the Lord His blessing sends, 
And heaven in bright effulgence bends, 

With life the scene to fill. 

REDEEMING THE TIME. 
^TOT on some day, as mortals say, 
•*■ * Do years and cycles pass away ; 

They die as moments, one by one, 
As grains of sand drop from the glass, 
So do the mighty ages pass 

Until some counted date is done. 



I r i Poems of Meditation and Reflection. 

Our moments, hence, are separate things, 
Like leaden or like golden rings; 
But welded by us, link to link, 
May into sky-built ladders flow 
Or into bondman's fetters grow 

On which each one shall rise or sink. 

Hope not to scale some height sublime, 
Saved by each separate link of time 

Passed through thy fingers, one by one; 
But climbing, be thou brave and bold, 
For angel hands thy hands shall hold 

Until the heavenlv heights are won. 



PP^T III, 



poems of Xove at Iftome. 



A HANDFUL OF BARLEY. 

THESE gleanings in the fields of truth, 
Collected in the sultry noon, 
I bring with song, like loving Ruth, 
Beneath the joyous harvest moon, 
And ask to lay my winnowed hoard, 
With blessings on the family board. 

If home-love prize the gathered grain, 
Which my own love has sought to bring, 

And if unwasted it remain, 

Or sown, it shall to harvest spring, 

I shall, if not with mortal voice, 

In all their harvest-homes rejoice. 

IN PRAISE OF HOME. 

TT^ERE there a tuneful note unsung, 
^ * A fitting word of love unspoken, 

Some harp still on the willows hung, 
Some alabastar box unbroken, — 

Some new, best gift reserved for me; 

I'd give it, home, sweet home, to thee. 

Here are the treasures of the heart, 
Lodged in a safe, secure retreat; 

Here all may share an equal part 
Of what life has of pure and sweet, 



Il8 Poems of Love at Home. 

The best that earth to man has given, 
And likest to the home in heaven. 

If forced awhile abroad to roam 

Around the wide and peopled earth ; 

The heart, still anchored to the home, 
Longs for the place that gave us birth ; 

We seek the best abroad in vain, — 

The best is going home again. 

The weary pilgrim of four score. 

Whose tired feet refuse to roam, 
Turns back his face to childhood's door, — 

Asks, once again, for friends and home, 
And longs, at last, his dust to rest 
With those he earliest loved and best. 

OLD FAMILY FRIENDS. 

"Thine own friend and thy father's, forsake thou not.' 
Prov. 27:10. 

'T^HE memory of our family meetings, 
-*- The many calls and kindly greetings, 
The smiles of love, the fond words spoken, 
The mutual pledges, never broken, 
Have round our hearts and hearthstones wove 
A thousand folded web of love. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



119 



Our feet, where grandsires walked before, 
Have sunk the path from door to door ; 
Their children's children run to meet 
The coming of familiar feet 
And give us welcome to the board 
Where old-time love its blessing poured. 

The ancient elms above us bending. 
Are more and more their arms extending. 
Till roofing with perpetual shade 
The pathway our ancestors made, 
And as they intertwine and lengthen. 
They but the leafy archway strengthen. 

And may our children's children never 
One clasping bough or branchlet sever, 
But cherish with peculiar care, 
Their towering beauty, rich and rare, 
Till on their heads, serene and old, 
Time drops his warp and woof of gold. 

THE MAGIC TOUCH OF LOVE. 

I HOLD in my fingers a tightly closed box, 
Not visibly fastened by fetters or locks, 
I press on it lightly, and lo, the quaint thing, 
Responds and flies open with musical spring ! 



120 Poems of Love at Home. 

I've found human hearts by some prejudice sealed, 
Which neither to logic nor threatenings would yield, 
Yet — yet sweetly relenting would wide open stand, 
To looks of true love and a clasp of the hand. 

And so I conclude that there always must be, 
Some lock or some spring or some delicate key, 
Which love, if it searches, has power to find, 
And with it unfasten the heart and the mind. 

THE SOFT ANSWER. 

TF I can smother rising anger, 
■*■ With a look or word of love, 
I have found a strain of music, 
Worthy of the harps above. 

THE CHARM OF HIDDEN BEAUTY. 
I Peter 3:3, 4. 

NOT diamond, gold and plaited hair, — 
If these may have a fitting place, — 
Can with the "hidden man" compare, 
Whose soulful beauty lights the face. 

The grace and meekness of the heart, 
Speak on the lip, beam from the eye, 

And these, when other charms depart, 
Retain their youth and cannot die. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



121 



The very wrinkles of old age, — 
The faded cheek, the brow of snow, 

Are but the finely pencilled page, 
Whose lines the hidden artist show. 

As through a flock of fleecy clouds, 
The hidden sun pours gold at even; 

So through the mantle which enshrouds 
A love-lit soul, glow rays from heaven. 

WHERE IS HOME? 

Ubi sum ibi non sum; Ubi non sum ibi animus est. Anima 
ubi est amat non animat. — Erasmus. 

NOT where I am, am I, 
Whether I rest or roam ; 
I still an exile sigh, 

My heart is not at home. 

Not where I live and move 

Is home, on land or sea; 
But where abides my love — 

O, that is home for me 1 

Much of that now and here 

Seems still not close at hand ; 
The loved is far more near 

Though in a distant land. 



122 Poems of Love at Home. 



'Tis not in space to part 

Souls wedded, tried and known; 

The still untraveled heart 
Will clasp and claim its own. 

"VERA AMICITIA SEMPITERNA." 

OHALL loved ones, forgetting the friends whom they 
^ love, 

Prove faithless to virtue and truth? 
Ah no ! though stern Fortune their presence remove, 

And Time chill the ardors of youth; 

Yet Friendsihp will follow, wherever they be, 

And Age will but strengthen the tie ; 
'Twill bind them on land, it will measure the sea, — 

They friends will remain till they die. 

On plunging a magnet in filings of steel, 

You thousands may lift in that way; 
Or bearing your burden aloft you shall feel 

You're holding a metal bouquet. 

The magnet of friendship will always draw friends- 

A lesson worth labor to learn, — 
And by its own law it invariably tends 

To make other friends in return. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



123 



Attraction ? — I know not its source or its cause ; 

Its secrets I may not unfold; 
And mortals are swayed by mysterious laws, — 

Sometimes by the glitter of gold; 

But one thing hath power, below and above, 

All beings in blessing to bind ; 
That power is th' magnet that lies in true love. 

And sways the great heart of mankind. 

TO MY LOVE. 

Canticles 5:2. 

t^T'LL write in thy album, my day's work is done; 
-*- My friends have retired and now I'm alone;" 
Thus said I last night, when the clock was near ten, 
I sank on my sofa, and took up my pen, 
But puzzled my fancy just how to begin. 

I thought till I sank in a slumberous dream, 

And seemed to myself as afloat on a stream; 

Its margin was fragrant with fruitage and flowers, 

And up from the river ran beautiful bowers, 

All splendid with dewdrops and rainbows and showers. 

Through skirtings of forests, broad avenues lay, 

And hid in bright summits that rolled far away ; 

I landed and wandered, admiring each scene; 

Heard fallings of fountains, saw lawns of bright green, 

And beautiful broklets that glided between. 



124 Poems of Love at Home. 



Wherever I wandered, however I strayed, 
In valleys, deep-shaded, in forest or glade, 
I met at each turning some sweet, smiling face 
Of fairy or wood-nymph, of dryad or grace, 
With arms intertwining or locked in embrace. 

1 wondered in dreaming if this were a dream ; 
This river, I said, is a Paradise stream; 
This garden of beanty, this sunshine, these flowers, 
This fragrance, these radiant and beautiful bowers 
Are Eden's — bright Eden's, a love-land of ours. 

Mid laughter and weeping some sentence I spoke; 
It startled me quite, and I quickly awoke; 
The bell of my clock was just ringing at ten; 
As when I first nodded I seemed to be then, 
With my hand on the album and the ink in my pen. 

I dreamed in my fancy, my heart was awake; 

And so from my dreaming, this meaning I take : 

For your sake I dreamed it, — for your sake and mine, 

And this is its purport, I surely divine, 

As this part and that part are seen to combine : 

The land that I saw is the scene of our life ; 
With me as your husband, and you as my wife; 
The walks that were winding, the fountains at play, — 
The bowers that bent o'er the long shining way, 
Are nought but tomorrows of the path that we stray, 



Poems of Love at Home. 



125 



And when all and more in our future is blended, 
And the journey so bright, by the river is ended, 
Then leaving behind us the marge of the river, 
And passing still onward, the gracious All-Giver 
Will grant us the rest in the brighter forever. 

TO A MAID AT SEVEN. 

nr^HIS day thy seventh year is ended, 
-*- Its moments with the past are blended- 
A week of infant years; 
How like a sweet and pleasant dream 
Does thy first week of summers seem, 
How fresh thy life appears ! 

But e'en for thee, life's sunny scene, 
Hath had some darkening shades between, 

'Twas not all merry May; 
I've seen true sorrow in thine eyes, 
I've heard and hushed thy infant cries 

And wiped thy tears away. 

With patient smiles and kindly slow 
Thy mother taught thy hands to sew 

Some patches in a seam, 
Till last, a pictured quilt was made, 
Of almost every hue and shade — 

From black to white between. 



126 Poems of Love at Home. 

To us, depraved with sin and guilt, 
Life, like thy parti-colored quilt, 

Is made of light and shade; 
'Twould not be well if all were bright, 
Nor well if all were dark as night, — 

Of both our life is made. 

God has for every life a plan, 

'Tis ours His love and grace to scan 

In every changing hue; 
When Judgment shall our lives unroll, 
Then shall we, glancing at the whole, 

Pronounce it good and true. 

SWEET SIXTEEN. 
TF my fond heart, ere Fm aware, 
■*- Incline the judgment of my head, 
So when I thee, sweet one, compare 

With othere daughters also fair, 
In spite of all my watchful care, 

My judgment be misled; 

I beg of thee, and others too, 

My more impartial friends, 
Ye will not too severely view 

The picture partial ringers drew, 
And ask if every tint be true 

Where light with shadow blends. 



Poems of Love at Home. 127 

I wish, indeed, that I could paint, 

Not color, form, or face, 
But life — thy life — not of a saint, 

Nor yet grotesquely queer or quaint, 
But where the colors fair or faint, 

Thy real self should trace. 

That thou in face and form art fair, 

Hast love-bewitching eyes, 
Hast ruby lips and golden hair, 

Of beauty quite a liberal share, 
Is not my highest joy and care, 

Nor what I chiefly prize. 

I love indeed thy glowing cheek, 

But more thy honest heart ; 
Thy gentle spirit, chaste and meek, 

To me more sweetly far can speak 
Than all the trilling tones that break, 

Where goodness has no part. 

Sometimes thou seemest rather gay, 

Too thoughtless, daughter mine, 
Too fond of mirth and girlish play, 

That this is wrong I will not say; 
I know with thee 'tis merry May, 

And fields and flowers are fine. 



128 Poems of Love at Home. 



I would not wreath thy girlish brow 

With sober Autumn's hue ; 
So be a happy maiden now, 

Too soon the cold, rough winds will blow, 
Too soon will come the winter's snow, 

And change this golden view. 

I only wish the flowers of spring, 

When leaves and blossoms fall, 
When merry birds no longer sing, 

Or beat the air with wanton wing, 
May leave for thee some better thing 

Than song and beauty, all. 

If thou wilt cast some golden grain 

Upon the blooming sod ; 
It will return to thee again. 

Rewarding all thy care and pain 
When birds and flowers cannot remain, 

A harvest gift of God. 

Let study store thy youthful mind 
With gems more bright than gold ; 

Let wisdom on thy temples bind 
The fairest jewels of her kind 

With these around thy forehead twined, 
Thy face shall ne'er grow old. 



Poems of Love at Home. 129 



What though thy youthful strength may fail, 
Thy eye grow dim with years; 

Thy rosy cheek sink wan and pale, 
And life seem like a thrice-told tale; 

E'en walking through Death's shadowy vale 
Thy heart shall know no fears. 

SOBER TWENTY. 

LIKE the fabled "horn of plenty," 
Is my daughter's "sober twenty"; 
Full to overflowing measure 
With sweet girlhood's charm and treasure. 

She, my "sweet sixteen," was lately, 
But with form and mien more stately, 
Now she is my mature maiden 
With sweet gifts and graces laden. 

But the stream of life is flowing 
Onward, onward, evergoing, 
Stronger, deeper grows Life's river, 
Hasting toward the great forever. 

In a cloud-like skiff my daughter 
Floats upon the magic water, 
Softest gales in canvass hiding 
Aid the light craft's downward gliding. 



130 Poems of Love at Home. 

How I mark the light craft wander 
Towards the distant unknown yonder, 
Where the skies and waters blending 
Give the scene a mystic ending. 

Here, the open sunbeams shimmer, 
There the sun and shadows glimmer, 
Now, she glides thro' flowery meadows, 
Now, beneath the dense grove's shadows. 

Onward sweeps the merry sailor, 
Shouting back to all who hail her ; 
"O how bright is Life's glad river — 
Might it thus flow on forever !*' 

Once I rowed the infant sleeper, 
Till she woke in waters deeper — 
Till the tiny arm grew stronger, 
And the keel itself seemed longer. 

When her arm and heart grew bolder, 
When the head and hand were older, 
Then I more and more gave over, 
Guidance to the maiden rover. 

But my heart still rows beside her, 
And my hands are stretched to guide her : 
Never shall my fond care falter 
Till I sink beneath the water. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



131 



Tender loves she father, mother, 
Tender toward each cherished brother ; 
Makes each heavy burden lighter 
And the brightest day still brighter. 

Often when my limbs are weary, 
Or the days seem sad and dreary, 
Or when care my thought encumbers 
Robbing night of peaceful slumbers : 

Then some kind and thoughtful token, 
Or some fitting promise spoken 
Oft has rallied hope declining 
Silenced grief and vain repining. 

Oftener still my soul was strengthened, 
And its shrunken vision lengthened, 
And the curtained clouds uplifted, 
Or with golden sunbeams rifted. 

When I heard her sweet voice render, 
Some forgotten promise, tender — 
Song and promise, prose or meter, 
For the singer's voice were sweeter. 

Thus, today we round the measure, 
Of full twenty years of pleasure — 
Pleasure, still, despite rough weather 
Of life's voyage past together. 



132 Poems of Love at Home. 

What shall be the future sailing, 
What th' achievment, what the failing, 
Is not wholly in our vision, 
For our choosing or decision. 

"Man proposes, God disposes," 
And the future he discloses, 
With its burden and its beauty, 
As is best for daily duty. 

Use, with diligence unfailing, 
All the means of safest sailing; 
Trusting, still, through thy endeavor, 
God shall lead and guide forever. 

FAITH IN PAPA MAKES ME JUMP. 

ON the mantel, not afraid, 
Stands my little curly head ; 
High above the stove he stands, 
Swinging back and forth his hands — 
'Fraid of falling? Not a speck, 
But of kisses on his neck — , 
On his snowy neck of pearl, 
One for every sunny curl. 
I below, not more afraid, 
Watch each motion that is made. 
Ask the jolly little elf, 



Poems of Love at Home. 133 

He will answer for himself — . 
"Darling, are you not afraid?" 
"No," will shake the saucy head, 
And he'll tell you quick and plump, 
"Faith in papa makes me jump." 
Now he's leaning from the wall, 
Now my boy begins to fall, 
Half a fall and half a jump, 
Tumbling comes my baby lump. 
When he comes he shuts his eyes, 
Isn't that exceeding wise ? 
For the jump is one of faith, 
One, perhaps, of life or death, 
But the urchin has no fear, 
For he knows his papa's near, 
Fully trusts his out-stretched arm, 
Never dreams of hurt of harm. 
Father, when I'm growing old, 
And my hands are weak and cold : 
When I'm leaning from the wall, 
Feeling too that I must fall; 
May I close my eyes in faith, 
Drop into thy arms at death, 
Caught upon thy faithful breast 
I shall safely, sweetly rest. 



134 Poems of Love at Home. 



BLOWING BUBBLES. 

WEARY, on my couch reclining, 
Full of pain and discontent, 
Musing sore, I sat repining 
At a host of troubles sent. 

Gilded hopes, and fondly cherished, 

Doted on for many years, 
In a moment rudely perished, 

And I scarce could stay my tears. 

Meanwhile, at an open window, 
All unconscious of my troubles, 

Stood a group of merry children, 
Tossing out some shining bubbles. 

From their dripping pipes they threw them 
On the bright and buoyant air, 

Upward oft the current drew them, 
And they looked exceeding fair; 

But I saw each globe was broken, 
Often when it seemed most bright, 

Leaving not a trace or token 
In its fair and transient flight. 

But I felt each bursting bubble, 
Sailing from the pipe of clay, 



Poems of Love at Home. 



*35 



Carried from my heart a trouble, 
Till the burden passed away. 

For I saw the happy children, 

Wept not when the bubbles burst, 

But threw others just as gaily. 
As they threw them at the first. 

What, said I, are all my schemings, 
Fancied hopes and gilded joys, 

But the veriest noonday dreamings, 
Light and trifling as these toys ? 

W r hen a child, I too, made bubbles, 

Then I used a pipe of clay ; 
Now I make them of my troubles. 

Only in a weaker way. 

BABY'S HAND. 

PRECIOUS little, newborn fingers ! 
As I hold you in my hand, 
Round my heart a strange spell lingers 
Which I scarce can understand. 

Mine is a commingled feeling — , 
Sweet, but not without alloy, 
For there comes a sadness stealing 
From the fingers of my boy. 



136 Poems of Love at Home. 



Who will guide this active wonder? 
Who will train this baby-hand ? 
Hold its growing movements under 
Love and Wisdom's just command? 

Will it prove a myriad blessing, 
Scattering from an ample store? 
Lift the load of care oppressing 
God's despised and helpless poor? 

Yes, I mark the witching beauty 
In each dimple, curve and swell; 
Still, an awful sense of duty 
Mingles with the joy I feel. 

Yet I'll kiss it and caress it, 
While I try to guide and save it, 
And will trust the Lord to bless it, 
For he fashioned it and gave it. 

"GONE BEFORE." 

THERE, darling, may thy spirit be, 
Where is thy realm of rest ? 
So dim are all my thoughts of thee, 
That when my holden eyes would see 
Thy spirit from thy body free, 
They all seem dreams at best. 



Poems of Love at Home. 137 

1 only saw thy bosom heave, 

And shorter grow thy breath ; 

I only saw the sweet light leave 

Those eyes which never more shall grieve, 

And felt thy pulseless heart receive 

The fatal stroke of death : 

Then all I had of thee, dear child, 
In dreamless slumber laid, 
Was thy sweet face, so pure and mild, 
But O, it neither wept nor smiled ! 
And when I called in anguish wild, 
Thy lips no answer made. 

Thou art not here, I have not thee, 
My once dear, smiling boy, 
But this is all my eyes can see ; 
Whate'er thy other self may be 
Is not as yet revealed to me — , 
Thy sphere nor thy employ. 

I cover with my lifted hand, 
These tearful eyes of sense ; 
Nor will I seek to understand 
The mysteries of the spirit-land ; 
No light or skill can I command 
To pierce those shadows dense. 



138 Poems of Love at Home. 

I only ask what Jesus saith — , 
The Life, the Truth, the Way ; 
Here will I rest my trembling faith; 
He gilds for me the darkest path 
With hope that full assurance hath 
Of immortality. 

THE HEART'S ANSWER. 

T FEEL it true, nor question why 
■*- But feel within my soul 'tis true, 
That if the heart's love cannot die 
Then must survive its object too. 

The mother bird in whose soft breast 
A sweet and tender instinct springs, 

Will line with love her downy nest 

And brood her young with patient wings. 

Yet when hath grown her callow charge, 
And from the parent nest hath flown, 

She lets them roam the world at large, 
Unclaimed, unnoticed and unknown. 

But in my widowed heart I wear 
The image of a vanished face; 

But why, if what is cherished here, 
Hath no more being, time or place? 



Poems of Love at Home. 139 

I've seen the image of a star 

Deep in a quiet lake at even ; 
And though unseen, I knew afar, 

A star looked down the dome of heaven. 

I've heard a tender sound complain 

At eve, amid Eolian strings ; 
And though unseen, I know the strain 

Was wakened by the zephyrs' wings. 

And so I feel a spirit's breath 

At times across my heart strings move ; 

And shining in the stream of death, 
I see the hidden star of love. 

And so my spirit holds a faith 

Unlabored of the weary brain, 
That those who love and part on earth 

Shall meet in realms of love again. 

LEADING, I WAS LEAD. 

Isaiah 40:6. 

T N learning that a child may lead, 

I also learned that he may teach ; 
Happy my heart, if it shall heed 
And use the sermons he can preach ! 



140 Poems of Love at Home. 

Thus preached to me my little man. 
But not in phrase that can be told ; 

His sermons with his life began, 

And lengthened with his curls of gold. 

One, Memory measures by a beam 

Which made a path to Sabbath School ; 

It lay across a rapid stream, 

And o'er a deep and swirling pool. 

I carefully his hand would take, 

And lead him on his dangerous way; 

How oft my trembling limbs would quake, 
The swaying foot-bridge to essay ! 

But he, the daring preacher boy, 
Rejoiced to tempt the slender beam, 

And count it his suprernest joy 
To beat his Ma across the stream. 

My blood ran chill to see the child, 
Before he gave me time to think, 

Start down the path, with gladness wild, 
To run the bridge from brink to brink. 

But he was gallant, too, as brave, 
And proffered me his manly hand, 

And his great care and wisdom gave, 
And led me safe from land to land. 



Poems of Love at Home. 141 



Thus leading me, he, too, was led ; 

Our mutual leading thus began; 
His firmer steps I've learned to tread, 

And lean now on the full-grown man. 

Not braver, but more cautious grown, 
He leads me with a hand more wise ; 

And I have learned, as better known, 
His manly leading more to prize. 

Now trembling with my weight of years, 

I lean upon his proffered arm; 
His whispered "Mother" calms my fears, 

And drives afar all thought of harm. 

The past comes back like some sweet dream, 
. When I the preacher man behold, 
And through my tears cold Jordan's stream 
Seems bridged with beams of fluid gold. 

SHALL WE HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE? 

SHALL we have a Christmas tree 
Hung with candies, fruit and toys ? 
Shall we merry, merry be, 

With our darling girls and boys ? 

Shall we say old Santa Claus, 

Or the merry myth, Kriss Kringle, 



142 



Poems of Love at Home. 



Comes with bells, and sleighs, and toys, 
With a Christmas jingle, jingle? 

Yes, let's have the Christmas tree, 
Full of candies, fruits and toys ; 

Let us merry, merry be 

With our little girls and boys. 

Christmas comes but once a year — 
And the years, O, how they fly ! 

Let us greet it with good cheer, 
Greet it as it hastens by. 

Stretch the line from chair to chair, 
Range the stockings in a row ; 

You will note each little pair 
Longer than a year ago. 

Many households, here and there, 
When the tender work is done, 

Shall observe some little pair 
From the family row is gone. 

Still, set up the Christmas tree, 
Let not home be left forlorn : 

Death may now no terror be, 
Since the infant Christ is born. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



1 43 



E'en the fragrant evergreen 
May inspire the joy of faith ; 

As a type of life unseen, 
Tell of triumph over death. 

If the home is glad and bright, 
And the gifts, an ample store, 

Fill each heart with sweet delight, 
Let us not forget the poor. 

Ah ! the poor, in whose sad homes 
All is cold and bare and chill, 

Where no gladsome Christmas comes, 
Where no gifts the stockings fill. 

Christ may still be in the stall. 

In some cot or lowly shed, 
Where the sick for succor call, 

Where the hungry cry for bread. 

Succor them this Christmas day; 

When the Judgment time shall be 
You will hear the Master say, 

"Ye have done it unto me." 

THE POOR IN WINTER. 

/""MRCLING round our evening fire, 
*•— ' Happy faces brightly shone, 
Drawing still a little nigher 
As we heard the wild winds moan. 



144 Poems of Love at Home. 

Through our icy windows peeping 
In the cold and stormy night, 

We could see the snow storm sweeping 
'Gainst the lamp post's flickering light. 

Then again a strong gust rushing 
Forcing hard the passage door, 

Shuddering, all our laughter hushing, 
As we sigh, "The poor, the poor!" 

Are there not this stormy weather, 
Many hearth-stones dark and cold ; 

Homes where shivering inmates gather, 
Clad in garments thin and old ? 

Many sad and tearful faces, 

Lighted by no cheerful fire, 
In secluded gloomy places, 

Where the poor must needs retire? 

Homes where through the sashes sweeping, 
Drives the cruel wind and snow? 

Homes where little ones are weeping, 
As to bed they hungry go ? 

Where, perhaps, the strong-armed father 
Lies with fever wasted low ; 

Helpless hears the cry of hunger 
Hour by hour more plaintive grow ? 



Poems of Love at Home. 



H5 



Or, perhaps, the wine cup's madness 

Beggars every joy of home; 
Breaks the mother's heart with sadness, 

Wraps the wretched cot in gloom? 

Is it wine that drowns the fire, 

Or misfortune's stern decree; 
Or do both at once conspire 

To fill the cup of misery ? 

Through my icy window peeping, 

As the night wind rushes past, 
When I think of sad ones weeping, 

Shuddering in each cruel blast ; 

I only think of them as needing 

Ask not whence their want of store — 

Only of the misery pleading, 

As I sigh, "The poor, the poor." 

STILTS. 

QMALL men on stilts look wondrous high, 
^ Abroad, beneath the starry dome; 
But their great tallness cheats no eye 
Familiar with their size at home. 



146 Poems of Love at Home. 

JOY IN THE MORNING 

Psalm 4:8. 

LAY your knotted cares away, 
' When the hours are growing late; 
You shall find at break of day, 

The tangled skein is smooth and stright 

NOX BENIGNA. 

THAT dear old Nurse, kind Night is coming; 
Her head with silvery moonbeams gray ; 
She presses down the children's eyelids, 
And smooths their wrinkled cares away 

She says: "Come, lay your books aside, 
Your games, your thimbles and your seams ; 
O come, and we will softly glide 
Down to the land of sunny dreams." 



THE PHOTO OF OUR FAMILY GROUP. 
^ORGIVE, if I in such a crowd, 
With love and grace around me, 
Should feel a thousand times more proud 
Than if a king had crowned me. 



F' 



For what are all the gifts of kings, 
When not rewards for duty — 

But splendid toys and worthless things 
Compared with love and beauty ? 



Poems of Love at Home. 147 

I'd rather have this father's throne, 

Though myriads be above me, 
Than rule the earth and sea alone 

With no such group to love me. 

Then place me in the family group 

And let its loved ones cheer me ; 
And when beneath my years I droop 

O, let them still be near me. 

When one by one our eyelids close 

Mid tears of love and pity, 
May heaven again our group compose 

Within the golden city. 

BIRTHDAY GREETING TO HOWARD. 
Fifty years young or old; which? 

TV JTY question seems to tie my tongue, 

^ As both deliberation hold ; 
"Is Howard fifty summers young, 
Or is he fifty winters old ?" 

If age be measured by the poll, 
Then fifty winters have the sway : 
But if by strength and warmth of soul. 
Then fifty summers count to-day. 



148 Poems of Love at Home. 



Your age is measured by your heart, 
Not by gray hairs upon your head ; 
Draw Summer's curtains wide apart, 
And flowers shall spring where'er you tread. 

A BIRTHDAY THOUGHT. 

r T^HIS birth-day's the grain of the harvest that s past; 
■*■ The seed-time, no less, of the harvest to-be ; 
When seasons have vanished, thy garners, at last, 
Will show but the seed-corn once scattered by thee. 

Then ask gracious Heaven for purest of grain; 
And ask for as much as thy measures can hold ; 
Ask, too, for God's increase, his sun and his rain, 
And summer shall billow thv furrows with °old. 



TO MY MOTHER ON HER SIXTY-NINTH 
BIRTHDAY. 

A ROYAL wreath of ripened years 
-^*- Their bloom upon your temples lay, 
While with warm wishes, smiles and tears 
We greet you on your natal day. 

Old age is called the winter time, 
The snow-white season of our years ; 
'Tis, well, for here the garnered prime 
Of what is best in life appears. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



149 



The bloom of spring is changed to gold. 
The tender blade grows rich and sere ; 
The true, the good alone grows old, — 
Sin-blasted forms soon disappear. 

And so we bless the hand divine 
For what your happy birthday cheers ; 
For the ripe age of sixty-nine, 
And for the hope of added years. 

"I RELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE 
DEAD." 

\K7 E hold as a priceless possession, 

* Undim'ed by the tears we have shed, 
That ancient, consoling confession — , 
"The dead shall rise from the dead." 

We hold it, ungiven by reason ; 
Unborrowed from "Prudent and Wise"; 
W T e hold they shall come in their season ; 
The sleepers in Jesus shall rise. 

Shall rise, not outworn, in the morning, 
As when by their weakness oppressed; 
But bright in the Bridegroom's adorning, 
Shall come all refreshed by their rest. 



150 



Poems of Love at Home. 



Unknown in earth's annals or story — , 
Forgotten the graves where they lie, 
They yet shall appear in great glory, 
When vanish the earth and the sky. 

The Master by name shall address them — , 
Shall call them his "Chosen," his "Own"; 
To angels and men will confess them, 
And give them a kingdom and throne. 

And they, like the gold tints of even. 
Which follow the sun through the sky, 
Shall pass through the portals of heaven, 
And reign with the Saviour on high. 

MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. 

MY mother was old when she sat for her picture, 
Her body was bowed and her tresses were gra) 
She wore a white kerchief and iron-rimed glasses — , 
Her costume, though quaint, was the style of the day. 

And still she is sitting, though years have gone by, 
And borne to its resting her visible clay, 
Yet the sheen of her hair, the light of her eye 
And the smile on her lip pass never away. 

The canvas is faded and darkened by age, 
But love and fond memory can paint it anew ; 



Poems of Love at Home. 



151 



And like a sweet thought on a time-honored page, 
Her dear living presence forever beams through. 

I see her as when she leaned over my bed, 
Like an angel of mercy, in childhood's sweet bliss, 
I feel, even now, her dear hand on my head, 
And on my old lips the "Good-night" of her kiss. 

If ever I planted a rose for her hair, 

Or lightened a burden or brightened a day ; 

The thought of it now is like answer to prayer, — 

A blessing of Heaven to gladden my way. 

Our loved and departed unaltered remain — , 
However their pictures may fade and grow old : 
The former their youth and their beauty retain; 
The latter can only a semblance enfold. 

Immortal for me is the light of her smile ; 
Unfading the sheen of her beautiful hair; 
Though sadly, in sorrow, I miss them awhile, 
And sigh for them often, o'erburdened with care. 

But still, in fond memory and fancy's fair vision, 
Sometimes the old painting, transfigured, will glow, 
Till I seem to behold it in mansions Elysian, 
And the robes of the wearer are whiter than snow. 



152 Foetus of Love at Home. 



And thus the old picture looks down from the wall ; 
Its sweetness and brightness, increasing with years ; 
It greets me whenever I enter the hall, 
And often I answer with blessings and tears. 

THE OLD DINNER-HORN. 

T "YE heard many a note that has thrilled me with joy, 
-*~ But none, let me say, since the day I was born, 
Has pleased me so greatly as when a small boy, 
I heard, on the farm, from the old dinner-horn. 

The tube was of tin, 'twas a yard or so long, 

'Twas blown for "the boys," at the noon and the morn, 

Its monotone din was a "Welcome, come in — , 
Come in, my dear boys, to the sound of the horn !" 

A mother's fond lips pressed the trumpet of tin, 

She blew her full soul through the barley and corn ; 

"The dumplings are steaming, the apples are in ; 
Come in," was her call, "to the sound of the horn !" 

But the harvest is reaped and the fences are made, 
And gone are the farmers who furrowed the corn, 

And all save myself in the graveyard are laid, 
Beside the dear mother who winded the horn. 

The trumpet of tin — now a precious heirloom, 
Though dented and battered and homely and old, 

I keep as a token of mother and home, 

And boyhood's bright hours, more precious than gold. 



Poems of Love at Home. 153 



NEITHER CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE. 

Luke 20:36. 

/^\ HOW the heart leaps up to hear 
^-^ That somewhere lies a happy shore, 
A radiant and immortal sphere 

Which they who reach can die no more, 
But equal to the angels are ! 

If no more death, then no more pain. 
No parting sighs, no sad farewells, 

No mourner's tears, no funeral train. 
No open graves, no tolling bells, 

O thus to die is nought but gain ! 

Yea, dying thus is not to die, 

'Tis but to drop in dreamless sleep. 

To close on earth the tear-dim'd eye ; 
And, ceasing evermore to weep, 

Awake to life and bliss on high. 

'Tis but the pilgrim's going home 
To greet the lost on earth again ; 

To cease these desert wilds to roan 
And reunite Love's severed chain 

And hear the welcome plaudit, "Com?!'* 



154 Poems of Love at Home. 



WEDDING BELLS. 

To William and Florence. — Reminiscences and good wishes. 
May 9th. 1888 and 1898. 

TTOUR wedding bells so sweet, so clear! 
■*■ May they your future footsteps cheer 
Through all your happy way : 
But only soft and sweeter grown, 
Without a single missing tone, 
When stars shut in the day. 

TIN WEDDING DAY. 

npEN years ago this ninth of Maj 
■*■ Occurred your happy wedding day — 
The angles of the trysting room 
Were sweet with wealth of apple-bloom, 
And every scene was glad and gay 
On that serenest ninth of May. 

The fathers of the bride and groom 
With heads as white as apple-bloom 
Bent o'er their kneeling children dear, 
And heard their vows of love sincere 
And with commingled tears and prayer 
They joined the blessed, wedded pair. 

Fond memory never can forget 
The precious faces smiling yet, 
With all their love in warm hearts stored, 



Poems of Love at Home. 



155 



And all their greetings richly poured, — 
More fragrant than the apple-bloom 
Upon the heads of bride and groom. 

The chief of growing nuptial joys 
Are three bright, smiling, happy boys 
In each and all their handsome faces 
The eye the parents' likeness traces, 
And in their manners and their lives 
Their parents' faith and love revives. 

Then let the tinkle of the tin 

Ring out the decade, with its din; 

Ring in the silver yet to be 

With larger, richer harmony, 

Ring in the apple blush and glow 

Till Winter veil the bloom with snow. 



I 



SILVER WEDDING. 
KNOW not if my humble rhymes 



Will ring well with the silver chimes 
Which greet your ears to-day — 
I know not if the lines I sing 
Will have the true metallic ring : 
I only wish they may. 

I, like those poor apostles old, 
Have neither silver gifts nor gold, 
And hence can none impart ; 



156 Poems of Love at Home. 

I draw upon another store, 
In which I feel I am not poor — 
The treasures of my heart. 

Anticipating us to-day, 

Some kindly genius passed this way 

And crowned your heads with light ; 
As through your raven locks of hair, 
She slipt her silvery fingers fair, 

And left them snowy white. 

Above all gifts and treasures rare, 
Above all silver presents fair, 

We prize your locks of snow; 
Indeed, no royal diadems, 
Though burdened with the richest gems. 

With half the splendor glow. 

We wish, dear friends, you may behold 
Your silver wedding turned to gold — 

Your gold to diamond turn ; 
And when, at last, life's sun hangs low, 
May skies above and hills below 

In golden splendor burn. 

THE GOLDEN WEDDING RING. 
*nr^HE years have worn the wedding ring, 
**• Which pledged us young and binds us old; 
It proved itself no gilded thing. 
But to its center gold, pure gold. 



Poems of Love -J Home. 157 

The love it pledged, these fifty years 
Has stood the test and proven true ; 
Our cares and toils and mingled tears 
Have often tried it, through and through. 

'Tis true the ring has thinner grown, 
And thinner grown the shrunken hand, 
But that first love which made us one, 
Is no worn out and shrunken band. 

What if the ring is thin and old, 
It hath caught settings on the way; 
The eyes of children stud the gold, 
And sparkle on the band to-day. 

What if the care that made them strong, 
Wore down the gold-band, year by year; 
Today they give us more than song 
And "Honey moon" and wedding cheer. 

The widening circle, growing still, 
Of children's children, more and more ; 
Our "Golden Wedding's goblets fill 
With thankful gladness running o'er. 

Our trembling hands may never lift 
This side the wave, the diamond cup ; 
But we believe that he who gave 
The golden goblet which we sup, 



158 Poems of Love at Home. 

Will offer us, with his own hands, 
The jeweled cup of home-bred love, 
Immortalized in those bright lands, 
Awaiting us in realms above. 

In those bright realms of peace and calm, 
Where waves of trouble sink to rest, 
There comes the "Marriage of the Lamb," 
And perfect Love's eternal feast. 

INFANT BAPTISM AT HARVEST-HOME. 

Subject — Joel Henry H. 
OWEETER than the summer flowers, 
^ And the autumn's golden grain, 
Or the purpling, vine-clad bowers, 
Or the clover-laden wain, 
Art, thou, child, whom we are bringing, 
In our warm embraces bound — , 
Faith and Love's best offering — , 
To God's altar, harvest crowned. 

Give we him, as we were given, 
In this pledge of love divine, 
Back to God, his home and heaven, 
In this sweet baptismal sign. 
Christ receive thee and enfold thee, 
Keep thee in his loving care ; 
Lead thee, guide thee and uphold thee. 
Is our present, earnest prayer. 



Poems of Love at Home. 



159 



Take our jewel, take our treasure, 
Take as thine our infant boy ; 
Give him, Lord, in gracious measure, 
Thy sweet Spirit's peace and joy. 
For his baby form, so faultless ; 
For his head and lovely face ; 
For his ways and looks, so artless ; 
For his chubby arms' embrace ; 

Thanks we give and daily praises, 
From our inmost souls sincere ; 
Guide him through life's unseen mazes, 
Make the path of duty clear. 
Thus, howe'er the way be hidden ; 
When its steps are fully trod, 
He shall find it lead to heaven — , 
lb the blessed home of God. 

WHY I LOVE THE GRANDCHILDREN. 

YOU ask, Why love the grandchildren ? 
Because, dear, grandchildren they are; 
With dimples and merry, round faces, 
Blue eyes and their rich, golden hair. 

The children so happy and buoyant 
Are fairer than fairies and elves ; 
I love them because of their parents — , 
I love them because of themselves. 



160 Forms of Love ci Home. 

All children I love, I confess it, 
The handsome, the homely, the poor ; 
The waif — I would love it and bless it, 
But love the grandchildren still more. 

God make them grand men and grand women ! 
They're "olive plants" now, not the tree ; 
I love them for what they e'en now are; 
I love them for what they shall be. 

A CHRISTMAS GIFT OF A SILVER CANDLE- 
STICK. 

To Mrs. C. H. Brush. 

' I ^HE candle, light of other days, 
-*~ Shines through a mist of golden haze- 
Of precious memories from afar; 
And as it casts its trembling glow 
Across the star-lit Christmas snow 
It seems itself a tiny star. 

May this memento of the past 

Its forward streaming radiance cast 

For you across the coming year ! 
I give it with a wish of mine 
That it may never cease to shine 

And only shine to guide and cheer. 



Poems of Love at Home. 161 

A BICYCLE EXPERIENCE. 

T3 ANDAGED and splinted arm 
^ Suspended in a sling, 
For all this hurt and harm 

What lesson dost thou bring? 
For thou hast more for me 

Than twinge and pulse of pain ; 
Speak, I would learn of thee, 

Nor suffer thus in vain ! 
From lips of broken bones 

And swollen flesh I heard, 
Not in reproachful tones. 

This wisely spoken word : 

Patience and faith be thine 

To bear thy load of pain. 
And wait the hand divine 

To heal thy hurt again. 
Deem not the splint and band 

A burden on thee laid; 
They shield thy arm and hand 

With harsh but kindly aid. 
How oft do guards and stays ,- : 

Which fetter and restrain. 
But hedge life's dangerous ways 

And save from greater pain ! 



1 62 Poems of Love at Home. 

Mine is the broken arm, 

But not the broken wing; 
I mourn my hurt and harm, 

But, mourning, still I sing. 
Cast down but not destroyed, 

God's ways I know are best; 
My pain is overjoyed, 

My misery is blest. 
Humbled and lifted up, 

Fettered, by bonds made free; 
I taste life's larger hope 

And sweeter liberty. 
So while the clouds hang low, 

I strongly still would hold 
Till in the furnace glow 

My dross is changed to gold. 

HOW TROUBLES COME. 

I'VE found the troubles of my life 
Have rarely come alone; 
The foes I meet in daily strife, 
Advance not one by one. 

If in life's loom a sombre thread, 
Across the pattern flew, 
A quick repeating shuttle spread, 
Broad bands of kindred hue. 



Poems of Love at Home. 163 

If from the over arching skies 

A beating tempest fell; 

Then billows from beneath would rise 

And round my pathway swell. 

Those friends, I've found, who thickly swarm, 

In bright and sunny hours, 

Will fly before the winter's storm, 

And when a tempest lowers. 

So found it once the man of Uz, 
In his primaeval day; 
So is now as then it was, 
And so 'twill be alway. 

But I have found that not by chance 
Do troubles roam abroad; 
But drilled and marshaled, they advance 
On errands plan'd of God. 

And so my heart has learned with thanks 
To see them marching nigh, 
For high above their somber ranks, 
Love's golden banners fly. 



164 Poems of Love at Home. 

"HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP." 

Psalm 127:2. 

HE knows the weakness of the flesh; 
He knows the burdens that we bear; 
And so to lighten daily care, 
And our exhausted powers refresh, 
He lays us down and bids us steep 
Our weary limbs in restful sleep. 

How gives he his beloved sleep? 
How doth he wasted power repair? 
He takes himself our load of care, 
And bids his guardian angels keep 
Their watch and ward about our beds, 
While rest in sleep our weary heads. 

He takes the sense of sin away, 

And whispering soothing words of peace, 

He gives the burdened heart release, 

When penitents for pardon pray; 

Relieving thus the aching breast, 

He gives the troubled spirit rest. 

If pain distract the weary limb, 

If sorrow banish needed sleep; 

He tells us not to mourn and weep; 

But, casting all our care on him, 

Have neither anxious thought nor fear, 

For he himself will still be near. 



Poems of Love at Home. 165 

His presence, often more than sleep, 
Can give a sweet, refreshing calm, 
Which like a strengthening, healing balm, 
Is more to those who wake and weep, 
Than all the dreams which only bless 
The painless with forgetfulness. 

And when, at last, our powers shall fail, 
And weary eyes shall wake no more, 
But drifted from this earthly shore, 
We wake to life beyond the vail, 
Then those shall say who wait and weep; 
"He giveth his beloved sleep." 

YEARS SHORTEN AS THEY MULTIPLY. 

T FIND, as I am growing old, 

"■- With shortening step and failing strength, 

The truth of what is often told. 

My years seem lessening in their length. 

They sweep as on a downward slope, 

Increasing with a gathering force; 
As manly strength contracts its scope 

They haste to terminate their course. 

As sinks the sun with failing light 

Far down behind the mountain rim, 
So too upon my failing sight 

The forms of life are growing dim. 



1 66 Poems of Love at Home. 

And as the sun behind the west 

But rises on an unseen sky, 
While countless million, seeking rest, 

Unconscious in earth's shadow lie ; 

So too for me a morning glow 
Climbs up a distant sky serene, 

As evening shadows longer grow 

And less of earth's gay sights are seen. 

Then swifter down life's western slope 
Roll on my years with gathering force, 

Since ye but brighten future hope 
And swiften my ascending course. 

THE DISSOLVING HOME. 

TO MY WIFE. 

OUR home is growing lone, my dear, 
As we are growing old; 
The children we have toiled to rear, 
Who gave us care but more of cheer, 
Are not all with us now and here — 
They grow and leave the fold. 

Around the circle of our home 

A larger circle bends ; 
Long years upon its orbit roam, 
New stars within its circuit come, 



Poems of Love at Home. 167 

But we as two began our home. 
In tzvo the circle ends. 

Such thoughts, sometimes, a shadow throw 

Across life's closing way; 
Of course, we cannot have, I know, 
The morning dew and noonday glow 
On sunset shadows, long and low. 

Which bar the close of day. 

Nor would I, having thee, complain 

Of loneliness, my dear; 
But still the thought I can't restrain, 
And feeling too, akin to pain, 
That since we only two remain 

Home is itself not here. 

Some of our precious household band 

Are in the home above; 
Some burn on India's tropic sand, 
And some in other stations stand; 
But still in all we clasp one hand — 

God's father-hand of love. 

So clasping this we still are one, 

And one we shall remain; 
What, then, if some from us are gone 
We still, my dear, are not alone, 
And let this thought for all atone, 

We all shall meet again. 



1 68 Poems of Love at Home. 



A 



GROWING OLD. 
H yes ! I count in my years ; 



I feel it in my very bones; 
I mark it in my dulling ears, 
And hear it in my feebler tones. 

And hide it as I slyly may, 
By using every shrewd disguise; 
1 have it in the tell-tale gray, 
And in the cloud upon my eyes. 

Kind friends will often say, 'tis true — , 

"How young you look; how hale and strong;'' 

But thus they did not use to do, 

When I was sure that I was young. 

And 1 am growing old, in truth; 
My sense less keen, my step less free? 
Still I retain my real youth ; 
I am not old and will not be. 

Tis not in years to make me old, 
Though time may wear my strength away. 
May make the vital currents cold, 
And turn my youthful locks to gray: 

For long as Love in me is young, 

And Faith looks up with undim'd eyes — , 

And I am sure I'm pressing on, 

To reach the mark and win the prize : 



Poems of Love at Home. 169 

Yea, while to me from springs unseen, 
The tide of Hope flows pure and strong-, 
My leaf of life will still be green, 
And I will know that I am young. 

The aged eagle molts his plumes, 

And from his eyrie sky-ward springs ; 

The strength and speed of youth resumes, 

And sweeps the clouds with new-fledged wings; 

So shall the soul that waits on God, 
With freshened strength its path pursue; 
Mount up on wings to his abode. 
And evermore its youth renew. 

MY BIRTHDAY AT THREE SCORE AND TEN 
AND FOUR. 

O'ER meadows mown and ripening corn, 
I look through eyes, not dimm'd with tears, 
But with the mists of many years, 
And bless the day that I was born, 
And all the days that intervene 
Between that and this evening scene. 

I would not say since I am old, 
Because my strength and senses fail, 
That life is like a thrice-told tale, — 
With weary iteration told, — 



170 Poems of Love at Home. 

But rather like the ripening year, 
Whose fruits are gathered in with cheer. 

Nor would I say that all those years, — 

As seasons have appeared and gone, — 

Have only glad rejoicings known, 

But rather that with toils and tears 

And mingled smiles and hopes, have come 

The sheaves brought in at "Harvest Home.' 

My rustling stalk is brown and sere; 
It oft hath felt the keen plowshare, 
Along its weedy rootlets tear, 
And knows the reaper now is near; 
The kindly sickle soon shall come, 
And after that the "Harvest Home." 

And shall I dread the sickle's edge, 
More than I did the keen plowshare? 
Is not the tiller's patient care, 
At harvest time, the surest pledge 
That he will kindly spare the grain 
Which drank his sunshine and his rain ? 

Meanwhile, I drink life's cup of cheer; 

The lapse of brook, the trill of bird, 

If not, as once, so sharply heard, 

Are still, as in my childhood, dear; 

And childhood's laugh and thought of sage, 

Are sweetened by my sober age. 



Poems of Love at Home. 171 

But would I live my life again ? 

And would I, if I could, recall 

My childhood, manhood, all in all, — 

Without their tears, without their pain, — 

Retrace the steps that I have gone? 

No ! life is better further on. 

I ask not for a life of sense, 

Of appetite for earthly food, — 

Though, in their time and measure, good; 

I have a longing, most intense, 

For larger life of thought and love 

And worship in the world above. 

There are such heights and depths, I know, 
Of what is faintly hinted here, 
In that advanced, transcendent sphere, 
To which the thoughtful long to go, 
That I, sometimes, can scarcely wait 
The call to that unseen estate. 

How sweet to be at home with God ! 

To know his loved ones and my own, 

Not dimly,but as I am known, 

Who with me life's changed paths have trod, 

But rest upon a happier shore, 

Where care and age oppress no more. 



: /\RT IV. 



IPoems of temperance. 



AUTUMN CLUSTERS. 

The new wine is found in the cluster. . . . Destroy it not, 
for a blessing is in it. Isa. 65:8. 

SEE! what wealth and beauty shine 
In the clusters of the vine, 
Filled with autumn's sweetest wine ! 

Ah! what hues of beauty drape 
Every full, distended grape, 
And how perfect is its shape ! 

How the microscopist dwells 
On the many chambered cells 
Where the ripening vintage swells ! 

Every pendant of the vine 
Seems to him a thought divine 
Hung in clustering crystalline. 

Such as these sweet clusters hold 
In unbroken cell and fold, 
Luscious, liquid, pure as gold; 

Such, I trow, was that ''good wine," 
Which the Saviour, all divine, 
Made at Cana's wedding shine. 

Not of fermentation bred, 
Lust-inflaming, poisonous, red, 
Filling home with woe and dread; 



176 Poems of Temperance. 

Not such wine as Bacchus sang, 
Source of many a woe and pang, 
Praised with shout and loud harangue. 

As I sit beneath the eaves 

Which the vine-clad bowers weaves, 

Listening to the rustling leaves, 

Dreaming half, I seem to hear 
Song of psalmist and of seer, 
Stealing on my drowsy ear; 

Song of gratitude divine 

For the heart-enlivening wine, 

As of old in Palestine. 



THE MARRIAGE AT CANA AND THE WINE 
MIRACLE. 

iIDDEN to a marriage feast 
In a city of the East, 
Jesus comes a willing guest. 



B 



Holy, calm, and dignified, 
No severe, unsocial pride 
Turns the blessed Lord aside. 

But with sympathetic grace 
Beaming from His holy face 
He adorns the sacred place. 



Poems of Temperance. iyj 

Thus His pure, approving: eye 
Puts a sanction on that tie 
Whose pure pledges never die ; 

But survive in realms above 

When from these low grounds we move 

To the home of perfect love. 

Thus for man where'er he roam 
Underneath the starry dome 
Jesus sanctions love and home. 

And He made His glory shine 
By an act of power divine, 
Through the water turned to wine. 

As the brimming firkins tall 
Feel His radiance on them fall 
Downward through their contents all 

They can feel a crimson flush, 
Deep as autumn's richest blush, 
Through their trembling measures rush. 

Never did the fruit of vine 

Burst into a richer wine 

Than bedecked this feast divine. 

Ne'er did bride or bridegroom kiss, 
In the midst of marriage bliss, 
Half so rich a cup as this. 



iyS Poems of Temperance. 



But did bride and bridegroom sup 
From the Savour's proffered cup 
Deadly gases bubbling up? 

Did its depths those fumes contain 
Which breed madness in the brain 
And which strew the earth with slain? 

Was it such as Bacchus sang? 
Did it hide the serpent's fang 
And the woful drunkard's pang? 

Could the Master's power and skill 
All those brimming firkins fill 
With the poison of the still? 

No! my inmost soul says, no. 
Never from His hands can flow 
Shame and want and sin and woe. 

He who came to save the soul, 
And to make the wounded whole, 
Cannot mix the drunkard's bowl. 

He who bids the wretched come, 
Gives the starving sinner room, 
Never blasts an earthly home. 

He who knows man weak and blind, 
To the weakest is most kind, 
Never darkens heart or mind. 



Poems of Temperance. 



179 



Could the cup of Christ deceive, 
Souls which in Him now believe 
Would draw back ashamed and grieve. 

But above the firkin's flush 
Faith can trust without a blush, 
And the caviling sceptic hush. 

Nor is she the least perplexed 
By those heads with learning vexed 
Which know how to turn the text, 

To the "moderate drinker's" plea ; 
All her cautious instincts flee, 
Such fair fruit on such a tree ! 

Howsoe'er it please the eye, 
She distrusts the ancient lie, 
"Eat, ye shall not surely die." 

No, the Saviour all divine 
Never made His glory shine 
In a cup of maddening wine. 

THE SALOON TO CHOOSE FOR A BOY. 

NOT a place on a fashionable street, 
All furnished and burnished within, 
Where the gay and the hail-fellows meet, 
With glamour the gosling to win. 



i8o Poems of Temperance. 



But rather a tumble-down den 
Surrounded by marshes and bogs, 

Where the gingle of glasses by men 
Shall blend with the croaking of frogs. 

The shanty I'd plaster all o'er 

With pictures and posters to suit; 

Hobgoblins I'd hang on the door, 
And monsters of human and brute. 

Here Murder shall bare her red arm 
And flourish her pistol and blade ; 

There tremens and demons alarm 
And publish the fruits of the trade. 

The sign of this chosen saloon 
Should say in sleek letters to fit 

Of serpent-coils hung in festoon. 
"I lead to the bottomless pit." 

No; pardon my humor, my son; 

I alter the pitch of my tune : 
No drinking- place zvanted, not one; 

No high-up nor low-dozvn saloon. 

The highest is still very low — 
All, all are but links in a chain. 

You begin at the top and you go 
Toboggan-like down a steep plain; 



Poems of Temperance. 181 

Go downward from laughter and light, 
With a swiftness that stifles the breath, 

With a reel and a plunge in the flight 
To regions of darkness and death ; 

To regions of shame and remorse 

With serpent-crowned furies to dwell, 

Where the wine and wassail of earth 
Give place to the horrors of hell. 

Then flee, my boy, flee the saloon; 

Alike do the glamour and glare 
And the serpent-coils hung in festoon, 

Mark stages to death and despair. 

THE VOTER— THE SALOON. 
TTTHAT curse is chief in all the land, 

Opposing right on every hand ? 
And seen across its path to stand? 
The dread saloon. 

Who plant and who sustain this r irse 
On earth, than which is nothing worse 
Or more incorrigibly perverse? 
The voters do. 

The voter is the legal cause, 
He takes the tax and makes the laws, 
And down on all the evil draws ; 
If not, then who? 



1 82 Poems of Temperance. 

All sober men begin to think 
The ballot is the hidden link 
Which binds the voter to the drink. 
In shame and woe. 

O freemen, ponder this and pause; 
Is Wrong made Right by human laws. 
Or changed in tendency and cause? 
Ah ! no, not so ! 

If liquor fills the voter's purse, 
And hence he shield the withering curse, 
Does not that make the matter worse ? 
Of course it does. 

When Justice, with its flaming brand, 
Shall burn the drunkard's trembling hand. 
Where will the guilty voter stand ? 
Next by his side. 

Thy ballot, like a living coal, 
May burn its imprint on the soul, 
Or, like a healing balm, make whole. 
Which shall it be ? 

The Rum-curse with thy ballot doom, 
Let good or ill to Party come ; 
Stand by the Altar and the Home. 
Stand, voter, stand ! 



Poems of Temperance. 183 



THROWING VOTES AWAY. 

TTJTTO will throw his vote away 

» » On the next election day ? 
Who will blindly sacrifice, 
What all freemen greatly prize, 
The high prerogative to say, 
Who shall rule and who obey? 

The ballot, rightly understood, 
Represents the patriot's blood ; 
At no less a sacrifice, 
Do we hold the sacred prize; 
Shall it, then, be bought and sold 
For a price in sordid gold ? 

He who slavishly would toss, 
At the bidding of a "Boss,'* 
Such a sacred pledge of power, 
In the crisis of an hour, 
When the nation's woe or weal, 
Every ballot's weight must feel, 
Is a voter of such kind — 
Is so sordid and so blind — 
That it were but just that he 
Wear the brand of slavery; 
For who votes his "Boss" to save, 
Is a craven and a slave. 



184 Poems of Temperance. 



But are ballots cast in vain, 
Which cannot success attain? 
Are those only worth our heed, 
Where the candidates succeed ? 
Are those others thrown away, 
On the grand election day, 
Which, lor want of numbers, fail, 
In the contest to prevail? 

Yes; if men must wait and guess 

Till instructed by success, 

At the closing of the fight, 

Who was wrong and who was right; 

Then the tally sheets must say 

Who have thrown their votes away. 

But if in the freemen's hand, 

The ballot for his conscience stand — 

For his best of heart and brain, 

And not merely party gain; 

If the ballot, on the whole, 

Shall express the voter's soul; 

Then, not failure or success, 

Shall the ballot's worth express; 

And no counting board may say : 

''This man threw his vote away!" 

If, while counting, we could weigh 
Votes cast on election day — 



Poems of Temperance. 1 8s 

Weigh in holy Freedom's scales 
What comes short and what prevails, 
Then we should not have to guess, 
By defeat and by success, 
Who, upon election day, 
Saved or threw his vote away. 

COMPROMISE— ISAIAH 28:15. 

/■COMPROMISING truth with error, 
^-^ Whatsoe'er the gain or prize, 
Is to marry light with darkness, 

And the law of God with lies; 
And in such unhallowed wedlock 

Truth makes all the sacrifice; 

For she binds her hands with shackles, 
Forged in death's profoundest caves, 

And she ties her tongue with pledges, 
And with curses framed by knaves; 

And thus selling out her birthright, 
Makes her children's children slaves. 

BURLY JOHN BARLEYCORN. 

TT is, as you say, Burly John Barleycorn, 
■*- The traffic in liquor's a wonderful trade, — 
That thousands distilling, from evening to morn, 
Are kept by the business and well enough paid. 



1 86 Poems of Temperance. 



Moreover, that merchants who handle the stuff, 
Get fortunes, in this way and that, as you say; 
The making and selling, all, pay well enough, 
But what of the drinkers who buy and who pay ? 

And Barleycorn, hear it, your modesty fails, 

To make for your business a broad enough claim; 

The many who order and manage the sales, 

Are scarcely a tithe of the hosts you should name. 

Now think, Barleycorn, of the felons you make, 

The widows and orphans, the poor and the vile, 

Whose tears and whose blood, with their treasures you 

take, 
And coin into gold with a satisfied smile. 

Then think of the hosts that must care for all these — , 
Policemen and jailers and hangmen, withal, 
Of juries and judges, attorneys and fees — , 
The bills of the business grow terribly tall. 

Add, builders of prisons, asylums and jails, 
For poor and dependent, all over the land; 
No wonder that Burly John Barleycorn fails, 
The scope of his trade, at once, t' understand. 

You say, "I pay license, a princely amount, 

For schools and for bosses, policemen and cranks, 



Poems of Temperance. 187 

And other large taxes, no body can count, 

And all this good money, with curses for thanks." 

Your taxes, though heavy, are lighter than air, 

In scales that are weighing heart-breakings and blood : 

The money thus gained is crimson red stained, 

And blistered with curses of men and of God. 

John Barleycorn knows that the seed that he sows, 
Are dragon teeth only, enamelled with gold, 
Which grow to a harvest of curses and woes, 
Whose burden and blackness can never be told. 

HOW THE RUM LICENSE WORKS. 

44 ''TVES rum," you say, "that rules the land; 
■*■ The ballot's cast by beer, 
And Liquor is the sovereign power 
The politicians fear." 

If whiskey pays the voter's tax, 
Then it will have a voice ; 
And if it pays the largest tax, 
'Twill have the ruling choice. 

If statesmen license rum and gin, 
And thrive upon the pay; 
Then must they she^er rum and gin — , 
There is no other way. 



1 88 Foetus of Temperance. 



Could you expect the party boss 
To fuss and fume and frown, 
And curse the drink that pays the tax, 
And run the business down? 

If rum is made a lawful trade, 
And pays its portion due; 
And pays, beside, the voter's tax, 
And lots of revenue; 

Then why despise and stigmatize 
The thing that serves you best? 
Or shall we think you like the drink. 
And also like to jest? 

Gambrinus knows where license goes 
There goes his foaming beer; 
It costs to sell, more must be sold — , 
The reason is quite clear. 

If wealth and style shall gild the trade, 
Then this will be its boon ; 
The palaces of rum and gin 
Will shame the low saloon. 

What pays the cash and cuts a dash, 
Is sure to hold the sway; 
And men will think it fine to drink 
Tn such a splendid way. 



Poems of Temperance. 1 89 

The license concentrates the trade, 
And links in one the cause 
Which buys the votes and pays the tax 
And makes and breaks the laws. 



WOMAN'S BALLOT. 

TT7HY need we fear for native land 
™ " When women join us at the poll ? 
Since well we know her pure, white hand 
Will vote her conscience and her soul. 

Why stand and tremble in suspense 
At prophecies of coming doom? 
Since well we know her moral sense 
Will vote her altar and her home ? 

Nor will the ballot stain her hand 
Pervert her nature, change her heart 
And ruin home and native land 
If in their weal she take this part? 

Will not her ballot prove a boon, 
A swift and self-avenging rod 
With which to scourge the vile saloon 
As with the lightning stroke of God? 



I go Poems of Temperance. 



And not less loyal, not less fair, 
With this strong weapon in her hand, 
Her vote will reinforce her prayer 
"For God and home and native land." 



SMITING FOR PROHIBITION. 

"And he (Elisha) said to (Joash) the king of Israel: The 
arrow of the Lord's deliverance. And Elisha said. Take the 
arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of 
Israel, Smite; and he smote thrice and stayed. And the man of 
God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldst have smitten 
five or six times, till thou hadst consumed it." — II Kings 
13:17-19. 

OMITE, men of God, the Rum king smite ! 
^ Smite, with a swift, unstaying hand, 
For temperance, justice, truth, and right, 
For God and home and native land ! 



The hydra-headed foe of all, 

Though smitten oft, still holds the field ; 
Strike on ! his kingdom yet shall fall, 

This foe of God and man must yield. 

Your strokes are prophecies of doom, 
Your arrows hold a heavenly charm ; 

Be sure the victory will come — 

God's strength is in your lifted arm. 



Poems or Temperance. xqi 

Your voice and votes, and faith in God, 
Your labors in the grand campaign — 

These are the infrangible rod 

With which the tyrant shall be slain. 

What though the hand grow tired and weak, 
And fainting hearts say, "It is vain"; 

Hear but the voice of Duty speak, 

And nerve your arm and smite again ! 

What if defeated twice or thrice? 

Doth not the righteous cause remain? 
Or will ye yield to crime and vice 

An easy, undisputed reign? 

Oh, no ! while life abides a boon, 

And rum remains its deadliest foe, 
So long pledge ye the foul saloon 

Your strongest and your heaviest blow. 



Pf\RJ V. 



nnustnas for the (Slutet Ibour. 



THE CREED IN THE "QUIET HOUR." 

^T^HE day is done; beneath the lamp I sit 
■*■ For rest of limb and rest of heart and brain. 
But such a rest as may, at once, refresh 
And strengthen in the evening-time of life. 
The weight of more than three score years and ten 
Rest on me now — they lightly rest, indeed — , 
So that I more of that sweet freedom think 
Which gives release from youthful restlessness; 
From manhood's strenuous battle in mid life; 
From all the ardent passions and impulse 
Which drive our burdened, full-sailed manhood's ship 
Out into rolling billows and swift storms ; 
Than of the weight and burden of my years. 
For these have brought me, as it were, to rest — , 
To meditation's quiet, peaceful shores. 
Here falls the slowly fading evening light. 
And as it softens in the dying West, 
My lamp, above my head, glows more and more. 

And now before the wasting oil is gone 
Which feeds the flame ; before the evening bell 
And that clear call across the silent sea 
Which soon, I know, shall surely come to me ; 
I wish to test, to prove, to trim again 
That other evening lamp — my credo flame — 
By which I hope to try the darkened waves. 



196 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 



Full well I know I need some better thing 

Than rush-light, fitful, — fading in an hour; 

Than speculation's meteoric flame; 

Than scientific guesses, plausible, 

Or anything that man's unaided mind 

May formulate about the world unseen. 

Let Haeckel, Huxley, Spencer and the rest, 

On evolution and environment, 

Heredity, selection, natural; 

On ethics' data, which ignore the Word ; 

On criticism, reconstructing it; 

Spin out hypotheses, original, 

And weave them into facinating webs, 

And spread them, glittering with the morning dew, 

To sway awhile in beauty to the breeze ; 

And let them have, for their ingenious work, 

The admiration of the passing hour. 

For me, I need some better thing than webs. 

I need the old, the strong, the tried, the true. 

My creed was old when these new things were born ; 

It has endured the wrench of centuries ; 

Passed through the awful test of martyr fires ; 

And like the bassic granite of the globe, 

It underlies the universal Church. 

The many branches of the Christian Church 

Run down and backward to the great tap-root, — 

Historic, evangelic and rock-laced, — 

Which gives them strength and stay and unity, — 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 197 

And this tap-root is "The Apostles Creed." 

What if the ancient legend be not true 

That it was in a convocation framed 

Of the Apostles, at a given time, 

When each one gave his own, peculiar part? 

It still, no less, is "The Apostles' Creed/" 

It is the very germ of what they taught ; 

Recites the facts and doctrines which they preached 

And what, from them as living witnesses, 

The Church has held, confessed and boldly taught 

From their own age until the present hour. 

The formulation of this holy Creed 

Was not the mushroom growing of a night. 

It grew as Nature's goodly cedars grow, 

By slow degrees, through centuries of time. 

Each thought and fact to place and order came 

In its own era as the Church had need. 

And here, it stands, a fadeless evergreen, — 

A symbol of its immorality. 

But as we further and still deeper seek 
For germ and origin of this growth divine, 
We find its source in that grand formula 
Which Jesus Christ, the risen Saviour, gave, 
When he commissioned his redeemed Church 
To make disciples, throughout all the world 
And to the consummation of its age, 
By teaching and baptizing in his name. 



198 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

"Go ye, therefore (and lo, I go with you). 

And thus disciples of all nations make, 

Baptizing them into the name of God 

The Father, and the Son and Holy Ghost." 

This three-fold name at once divides the creed. 

And binds in one again its three-fold parts. 

Of "God the Father" it sublimely says, 

"He is the Maker of the heavens and earth;" 

Of Jesus Christ, "Fie hath redeemed the world;" 

And of The Holy Ghost, "He generates, 

And sanctifies and unifies the Church." 

All else within the Floly Church's creed, 
Is but a due expansion, in detail. 
Yet, would I feed upon the truth it holds, 
I must divide and inwardly digest 
The several parts and e'en the particles 
Of that threefoldness which it brings to me. 
In turning to it, I am but a child, 
And feel that I can take it only then 
When it is broken, as it were, to crumbs. 

And first, this mighty, fundamental truth ; 

"In God," "In God the Father I believe." 

Whence comes to mind of man the thought of God ? 

Not from objective form or things of sense, 

For God is neither seen in silent groves, 

Nor heard in rustle of the golden grain ; 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 199 

He is not wrapt in vesture of the clouds, 

Nor do the thunders of the cataract, 

Or of the ocean, scourged by Equinox, 

And flying on white wings to shelving shores, 

Spell out the awful accents of his name. 

He made the earth, he spread the heavens abroad ; 

All things of wonder, beauty and of use, 

Receive their form and fashion from his hand, 

Yet in no open space or private haunt, 

Is there a form or fashion of himself. 

Nor may we, in our searching after God, 

Without impiety, at once, to God, 

And insult to our reason and our faith, 

Make images or likenesses of him. 

And yet all nations have some thought of God, 

And in some way express their faith in him. 

Is this possession innate in the soul, — 

Placed there by God as witness for himself, 

Preceding all reflection of the mind, 

Or conscious hungering of the empty heart, 

Or sense of human need and helplessness? 

I would prefer, as more germain to truth, 
To say, man hath capacity for God, — 
A nature, as it were, conformed to him, 
Who is to us an ever answering self. 
The lake that lies a mirror in the hills, 
Doth not originate 4:he various forms 



2oo Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

That swim in wavy beauty on its breast. 

[t catches and detains and thus reflects 

The flowers, trees and overhanging rocks, 

The many-colored clouds and distant stars 

Which love to see their beauty in its gleam. 

So thus, it seems to me, the human soul 

Doth not hold God among its faculties, 

As constituting its identity, 

But rather is a mirror of himself, 

Susceptible of presence, whisper, smile, 

Of brooding love and his eternal peace. 

This mirror may, alas, by power of will, 

Reverse the true relation of itself, 

Throw God's own image from its darkened gleam. 

And take, instead, and in its bosom hold 

A thousand low-bred forms of sin and death. 

But if, indeed, the self-directing will, 

Consent, submit and sweetly yield itself 

When God approaches and persuades the soul, 

Then shall it hear his voice and feel his touch 

And know through all its faculties of him. 

As when the bud feels touch of vernal sun, 

Its tightly, complicated folds untwine, 

And open up its bosom to his beams, 

With blush and fragrant thankfulness of heart, 

So doth the infant powers of the soul, 

When touched by very presence of the Lord, 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 201 

Respond and open up themselves to him. 
Then reason, brooding o'er his wondrous works, 
Perceiving thought, intelligence, design, 
Concludes a Maker, personal, divine, 
Whom it reveres and names the sovereign God. 
When, furthermore, tlr incarnate Logos speaks 
And tells us of the wondrous love of God, 
And puts his own great prayer upon our lips, 
And his sweet, trusting grace into our hearts, 
We add the thought of loving Fatherhood, 
And say; "In God, the Father/' we believe. 
For only through the blessed Son of God, 
May we the mighty Maker, sovereign Lord, 
Presume, unblamed, by that dear name to call. 
But through Messiah, Christ, we are made sons, — 
Yea, sons of God and heirs, joint heirs with him, 
And so may speak to God in filial confidence. 



IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD. 

Redeemed by Christ and made a son of God by him, 
I dare with inner joy fulness confess 
His name as equal with the name of God, 
"Almighty maker of the heaven and earth."' 

The name, the nature and the wondrous deeds 
Of Jesus Christ, his sufferings and his death, 
His resurrection and his glorious reign 



202 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

At God's right hand in sovereign majesty, 
Are all essential doctrines in this Creed. 

Jesus, the angel-given name for him; 
The Christ, anointed for his work of God ; 
Our Lord, to reign as mediatorial Head 
Of his redeemed, o'er all the world, 
Until the final consummation be — , 
All these have for my comfort and my faith 
Their precious place and their significance. 

CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, &c. 

This blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, 
In time, was of the Holy Ghost conceived, 
And of the blessed virgin Mary born. 
"Great is the mystery of godliness." 

The condescension of the Son of God 

To be of woman born, to take our state 

Of poverty, our human weakness take, 

And in the form and fashion of a man, 

To suffer hunger, thirst and weariness. 

Endure the contradictions of the base, 

Be tempted of the Devil and of men, 

Betrayed, denied of his own chosen ones, 

Be brought before a human judgment seat, 

And there condemned and sentenced to the cross, 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 203 

And mocked, insulted in the throes of death 

By those he came on earth to seek and save ; 

Is so stupendous in its total sum, 

And so amazing in its several parts, 

That mind of men might well with wonder reel. 

And even angels contemplate, aghast, 

The shame and suffering of the Christ of God ! 

WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD AND BURIED, &c. 

The Creed, in solemn reverence and in awe, 
Makes sharp and short the several downward steps 
Which lead from Pilate's hall to Joseph's grave, 
As if it would delay the musing mind 
So it might weigh and contemplate the whole. 

At best, I stand like those from Galilee, — 
The women, — who looked on and wept afar. 
When they beheld the Master led away, 
And saw him helpless in the hands of men, 
Ascending Calvary's hard and bloody steep. 

I know not how to measure that great deep 

Through which the Saviour passed to cross and grave. 

I seem like one above a chasm poised, 

O'er which hang intervening mists and fogs, 

Obscuring much of what transpires below. 

I hear the oft repeated, "Crucify," 

The ribald taunt of mob and railing priest, 



204 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

The jeer of robber by the Saviour's side, 

The sob and prayer of another one 

For pardon and his: "Lord, remember me!" 

And last, I hear the Saviour's seven words 

While hanging on the cursed tree for me, 

Beginning with that wondrous, tender prayer ; 

"Father, forgive, they know not what they do"; 

Until at last, when type and prophecy, 

His work and his vicarious suffering, 

Were all complete and nothing more remained, — 

"He cried aloud and yielded up the ghost''; 

All this I hear with overwhelming awe, 

And with the startled, stern centurion say : 

"In very truth this was the Son of God." 

The grave receives the rent and mortal flesh, 

But cannot hold the sovereign Prince of Life. 

For neither sealed stone above his breast, 

Nor legionary guards about his tomb 

Can make or hold him prisoner of the grave. 

He wakes, he rises from his three days' sleep, 

And shaking off the lethargy of death, 

And with a tread of majesty divine, 

He leaves the silent vault, the conquered tomb, 

Comes forth to greet the new-born, blushing day, 

And thus gives light and life to all the world. 

This fact : "The third day he arose again" — , 

So proven, aye, so incontestable — , 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 205 



Is that one central and essential deed, 
Which stamps the gospel message as divine. 
The seal of Pilate, broken from the stone, 
Is now the Father's seal, transferred to Christ, 
And marks his parchment with God's autograph. 
Now, then, as Christ is risen from the dead, 
It follozvs that he is the Son of God; 
That all he taught and did ; all that he claimed 
And promised to his Church and to the world ; 
Is true as demonstration's self is true, 
And not one tittle of the whole shall fail. 
Take "He is risen" from the credal arch, 
And every stone shall tumble from its place. 
Or, rather, this is that foundation stone, 
Elect and precious in the sight of God, 
Whereon his universal Church is built; 
Remove, if that could be, this corner stone, 
And all would into deep confusion fall. 

Here then I take my stand, here rest my faith ; 
I ask no other proof to stay my step 
Or guide my forward-marching, cautious feet, 
As down the vale of age and steep of death 
I walk into the great unseen, unknown. 
I know if Christ be risen from the dead, 
Then life and immortality are sure. 
Because he lives, I know that I shall live. 
What if the earthly tabernacle fail — , 



206 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

This house of clay, dissolved, return to dust — , 
I know there still remains another house, 
Not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 
To which I shall ascend and be at home, — 
Ah, yes, at home, forever with the Lord ! 

Now, "By the resurrection from the dead," 
Begotten to a "lively hope" in Christ, 
I cast my anchor's fluke within the veil 
And ride the storms of life without a fear. 
Christ hath ascended and abides beyond, 
Yet walks he with me on life's troubled sea ; 
He calms the waves and saith : "Be not afraid ; 
Lo, I am with you alway to the end !" 

Withdrawn from evidence of mortal sense, 

The Paraclete, — the Holy Comforter is here, 

To take and show the things of Christ to us ; 

And so we add unto our Christian creed ; 

And say : "I in the Holy Ghost believe." 

Ah yes ; The Holy Ghost, both with us and within ! 

He guides, instructs, reproves and sanctifies, 

And thus, through Word and Holy Sacrament, 

He generates "The Holy Christian Church," 

And through a common faith and mutual love — , 

Through worship and through gracious ministries — 

He gives a sweet ''Communion of the saints/' 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 207 

"The saints" are more in prospect than in fact; 

Are called out of the world and set apart 

To be a chosen people for the Lord, — 

A royal priesthood and a holy nation, 

To offer a perpetual sacrifice 

Of service, sincere praise and holy joy. 

Though chosen out of, they are in, the world, 
And are in contact with its snares and sins. 
Though saints, they are not wholly sanctified, 
And need that daily prayer of the Lord ; 
"Forgive our debts, O Lord, as we forgive." 
And yet they are the very saints of God — , 
Elect in Christ, kept by the Holy Ghost, 
Preserved for what's in heaven reserved for them. 
They sin, alas, but venture still to say; 
"Our God, through Christ, forgives us all our sin." 
This is the one great comfort of their creed. 

As saints, forgiven of the Lord, they wait, 

In calm and confident assurance, wait, 

For Christ's return to earth again, 

In glorious majesty to raise the dead, 

To judge the world in perfect righteousness, 

And gather to himself and into one, 

His chosen from all nations of the earth 

And welcome them to that inheritance 

Prepared for them at God's right hand in heaven, 



2o8 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 



Before he made the world and spread the sky, 
Then shall the final consummation be. 
The mediatorial kingdom then shall end, — 
And Christ, with God. and his redeemed saints, 
Shall reign in perfect holiness and peace, 
Through worlds and ages without end. Amen. 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

TF one would seek, somewhat, to understand, 
-*- And also feel the solemn majesty, 
Of that unique, transcendent form of words 
Which, from the name of him who gave it us, 
Is called, around the world, "The Lord's Prayer," 
'Twere needful one should shut the closet door, 
Exclude the world and be alone with God, 
And deeply ponder while he prays these words. 

No scholarship can fully comprehend, 

By dint of labor of the thinking brain, 

The scope and burden of these wondrous words. 

They ask also the musings of the heart. 

But if reverently we ponder them, 

We shall, at once, perceive their brevity 

Is equalled only by their boundless scope; 

The depth and elevation of their thought, 

By their transparent, sweet simplicity. 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 209 

They seem, indeed, to musing, thinking hearts, 

A sea of meaning in a drop of words ; 

They may be likened to a silken ball 

Which scarce would fill an infant's tiny palm, 

But which, unwound, would reach the distant skies. 

This prayer, by its unique and wondrous form; 

Its meaning, weight and comprehensiveness; 

Its worthiness to be addressed to God ; 

Its equal fitness for the needs of men, 

Proclaim its author as, at once, the Christ, 

And truest friend and brother of mankind. 

For who but knows the very heart of God — , 
His universal kingdom and his reign — , 
And knows the heart of universal man, 
Could so compress into a single prayer, 
At once, the will of God and every human need ? 
Yes, here it stands in majesty divine — , 
A ladder lowered from the heavenly throne, 
O'er which our earth-born feet may safely climb 
And touch the threshold of our home above; 
O'er which God's angels may descend to us, 
In ministry and guardianship of love. 

The lips of childhood may its thoughts express ; 
Its heart may feel the pulses of its love, 
And know the pillow where it rests its head, 
Is guarded by a loving Father's care. 



2io Musings for 'he Quiet Hour. 

Nor can the sage — , the wise philosopher — , 

Transcend, in his sublimest reach of thought, 

The endless, upward Teachings of this prayer. 

Its summit ranges have such altitude, 

And lie embossomed in such dazzling light, 

That earth-born wisdom may not scale their height, 

Or bear the full effulgence of their beams. 

"The wise and prudent" cannot better knew 

"The kingdom, power, glory," infinite, 

Of that one will which reigns in heaven and earth 

And underlies that universal law 

To which all moral beings, here and there, 

Supreme allegiance and obedience owe, 

Than veriest babes who lisp the Father's name. 

And Poetry, made strong and reverent by its theme. 

May also not ascend its heavenly heights. 

On wings of strong imagination borne, 

And lifted by its buoyant, bracing air. 

Inspired by draughts, Castalian, from its springs, 

It has, indeed, poured forth in psalms and hymns 

A mighty current, sweet and musical. 

Of pure devotion, confidence and joy, 

Which like an ever broadening, deepening stream, 

Makes glad, with song, the city of our God. 

And yet it has not tasted all its springs, 

Nor found where all the holy cascades leap, 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 21 1 

Nor sounded all its mountain-sleeping lakes, 
Where Beauty sees the image of itself. 

The prayer: "Our Father who in heaven art;" 
Poured from the cabins on the mountain's side, 
Has turned to homes the dwellings of the poor, 
And guarded sweetly sleeping babes within 
Against the wiles of savage beasts and men. 
And kings and queens in lordly palaces, 
Have felt no less the need of guardianship 
And Fatherhood for human helplessness 
Than any humblest children in their realm. 
"Our Father/' has gone up from catacombs, 
From deserts wild, and lonely mountain caves ; 
From vessels sailing on the rolling seas, 
And sweetly from those sinking in the floods ; 
Not less than from the altars of the Church, 
Where consecrated pastors with their flocks. 
Low bowing, utter forth this common prayer, 
Or in the attitude of confidence, 
Pour forth in grateful song, with organ full, 
The congregation's soulful harmony. 

It is the only universal prayer; 

Petitions seven — the sacred number seven — 

Are like the universal music scale ; 

Are like the colors in the solar beam ; 

Are like the daily measures in the week ; 



212 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

Christ's seven, solemn words upon the cross — , 

Like these, this holy prayer is at home 

Where music swells, where beams of sunlight fall ; 

Where days of labor and of rest recur, 

And where the cross of Christ gives hope and peace. 

Since this is not alone a closet prayer, 
But with its "Our" is also sociable, 
Come then, my brother, whosoe'er thou art, 
Of whatsoever name or race or speech, 
So that thou only canst "Our Father" say, 
And take thy place beside me for an hour, 
And with thy thought and sympathetic heart, 
Help me weigh the burden of this prayer. 
Take down the chart that hangs upon the wall, 
And let us slowly read and ponder it. 



The Introduction. 
OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN. 

FATHER. 

'Tis needful, first, that he who comes to God, 
Not doubting, must believe it in his heart, 
That God exists, a free Intelligence — , 
A Person who can know and hear our prayer 
And grant reward to them who seek his face. 
CREDO, my brother, must precede, ORO; 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 213 

A creedless, is at best, a godless prayer. 

A Father? yes, and not some soilless Force, 

Or heartless Law, "Which works for righteousness" ; 

Or some great, pantheistic "Over-Soul,'" 

"Whose body Nature is," fast bound in law. 

Such vague, unmeaning, ostentatious terms 

Insult the name and thought of Father-God. 

"Show us the Father, — it sufnceth us.'* 
Unseen, the Father's self is not unknown. 
What though no one can know him but the Son, 
Or Father call him but by his dear name, 
Yet all may know the Son as Brother, Lord — , 
Who is God manifest in human form. 
God, in the person of his holy Son, 
Received by faith, dwells in the human soul. 
As "Abba, Father," let the sons of God 
Appeal to him, with filial trust in prayer. 
For them, his heart is filled with pitying love ; 
His ear, attentive to their faintest cry ; 
His mighty arm outstretched for their defence ; 
His bounteous hand, with overflowing good, 
More ready to dispense its varying stores, 
Than earthly parents, at their best, can be. 

"OUR." 

He, brother, is your Father; he is mine; 

And "your" and "mine" are but two golden threads 



214 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

Which, upward running to the Father's hand, 
With others from his children round the globe, 
Unite and form a chord of brotherhood 
Which comes to recognition in the "Our." 
There is, indeed, a "brotherhood of man." 
One common nature and one common blood — , 
One origin, one mortal destiny — , 
Make all the nations on the earth, a kin. 
But OUR, in the prayer of the Lord, 
Implies an inner, deeper oneness still. 
It breaketh not the bond of man to man, 
But bindeth man to man in Jesus Christ. 
The pronouns in the prayer of the Lord 
Do more unite the worshipers in one 
Than pluralize the children of the Lord. 

The point of that connection lies above 
All lines of sect, of party and of creed ; 
Above the streams which run across the globe : 
Above the ranges of its mountain peaks — , 
Those lines which, setting earthly tribes apart. 
Make often foes of those whom God made one. 
The joining OUR so near the hand of God, 
Is so intensely held in one by him, 
That nought which separates the threads below, 
Can sunder those who own him, Father-God. 
Not that our earth-born, carnal, party strifes ; 
Our clashing creeds and Babel-shibboleths 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 215 



Are all indifferent in his holy sight. 
They cannot be, as he is one and Truth 
And Faith and Love and Brotherhood are one. 
But that which makes the family of Christ 
One common, universal brotherhood, 
Is Life, the life of God in human souls. 
Then let us widen out our thought of prayer 
Till in its loving sweep it comprehend, 
Our brothers and our kindred round the globe. 
Wherever, then, a human brother kneels 
And pours the "Our Father" from his heart, 
I have an interceding saint with God. 

"IN HEAVEN." 

Where is heaven ? Where is our Father-God ? 
I pray not to a place, nor to a state; 
1 to a Father, Spirit-Father, pray, 
And he, in essence, is not here or there, 
But everywhere, alike in earth and heaven. 
I stray, in thought, not through the universe, 
But find his heaven in my trusting heart. 
I seek no image of a formless God, 
Nor make one for him in my inmost soul. 
He clasps me like a holy air unseen ; 
I bathe me in the ocean of his light ; 
His gravitation draws me and I yield, 
And so I live in heaven and walk with God. 



2i6 Musings for the Quiet Hour, 



First Petition. 

•HALLOWED BE THY NAME." 

"Holy and reverend is thy name, O Lord." 

"Thy Name," is not a merely vocal word, 

•Which spoken, in its very utterance dies, 

Which fades with old and rises with new tongues. 

It rather is the person than the name — , 

The one unchanging and eternal self 

Whom we in thought conceive and seek to call. 

All titles, majesties and attributes 

Are unified in this one hallowed name; 

"Our Father-God" whom we conceive in heaven. 

God's name is holy now, beyond all praise, 

Nor can the "ter-sanctus" of cherubim, 

Nor all the "hallowed be thy name" of men, 

Add ought to its inherent holiness. 

But this makes not this first petition vain ; 

It rather gives a reason for the prayer. 

Since God's great name is holy in itself, 

1 may with stronger confidence entreat 

That it may ever holy be to me. 

I would be so invested with this name 

That I may wear it as a priestly robe 

In closet, at the altar of the home, 

In holy convocation in the Church, 

And in it touch the sacred bread and wine ; 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 217 



Nay, more, walk in it underneath the sky, 
In silent groves, by marge of fruitful fields, 
And on the banks of sweetly flowing streams, 
And everywhere with conscious reverence say; 
"This is none other than the house of God, 
And this the gate of heaven to my sou!." 
All things are hallowed by the name of God, 
When his great name is holy unto us. 

Second Petition. 

/'THY KINGDOM COME." 

With what solicitude the Saviour sought 
To make us know his kingdom in itself, 
Its source, its inner spirit and its end ! 
O, how he sought to have us enter in, 
Become its willing subjects, gracious heirs, 
And thus inherit all that it contains. 
It is a kingdom in the present world, 
Not of the world, but heavenly in its source ; 
It comes from God, is introduced by Christ, 
And by the Holy Spirit consummate. 

It is a kingdom neither here nor there, 
Nor does it into observation come ; 
Like God himself, it is invisible, 
And has its throne within the human soul. 
It is not Church nor ordinance nor rite ; 



2l8 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

It is not meat nor drink nor sacraments, 

But righteousness and inward peace and joy, 

Wrought by the Spirit through the Truth of God. 

As once the Spirit brooded on the deep 

And made a cosmos of the chaos, void; 

So now he broods o'r all this sinful earth, 

And from its darkness and confusion brings 

The light and order of a moral sphere. 

Wherever now his out-spread wings extend, 

There beauty takes the place of ugliness ; 

The formless or misshapen, wrought by sin, 

Assumes the lines and grace of loveliness. 

Man once again becomes a son of God ; 

Casts off the fetters and the rags of sin ; 

Arises from his place among the swine ; 

Puts on a glorious robe of righteousness 

And feeds his starving soul with heavenly bread. 

Yea, more, assumes the likeness of his God ; 

Becomes himself a crowned king, a priest, 

And taking up his scepter from the dust, 

He reigns once more in sovereign righteousness 

Where he had been a bondman and a slave. 

By God's own truth and by the Son made free, 

He bows in worship to the Lord alone. 

How shall this kingdom come ? 

Not by a movement, here or there, through space ; 

It needs no guild, no courts, no cabinets 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 219 



With diplomats to open up its woy, 
No army, with its enginery and flags, 
Shall go before and for it conquer room, 
And for it win submission from its foes. 
If schools and colleges and books are good 
And helpful to prepare its onward march, 
They still are not the kingdom's pioneers, 
They rather follow and are made by it. 
As vernal suns awaken sleeping flowers, 
And warmer beams and summer rains adorn 
The hills and fill the ripening fields with grain ; 
So do the light and dews of heavenly truth 
Give verdure to the wastes and burning sands 
Of heathen darkness and its vales of death. 
If for the thorn the fir aloft shall spring, 
And fragrant myrtle bloom where briars spread. 
It is not they that have drawn forth the sun, 
Nor wooed the vital rain-drops from the clouds, 
But these descending on the desert sands 
Have made them bud and blossom as the rose. 

It is the kingdom, like a holy atmosphere ; 
It is its warmth and light and dews of grace 
Enswathing all the cold and barren lands 
Where sin and darkness hitherto have reigned, 
That have drawn forth their later loveliness 
And changed them to the gardens of the Lord. 
The kingdom has the spirit in itself, 



220 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

As mustard seeds enfold a vital germ. 

The heavens and earth are but environment, 

Its growth is evolution from within. 

it touches, vitalizes and transmutes 

All things convertible into itself, 

And makes them forces for its glorious ends. 

By transformation, thus, the kingdom comes. 

As tiny rootlets of the mustard seed 

Lay hold of soil and moisture in the mold 

Aud build them into growing threads of strength 

To hold the rising, spreading branch aloft, 

While this drinks in the sunshine and the rain, 

And from the banquet grows to giant form, 

So that an orchestra of songful birds 

May chant its praise among its boughs ; 

So does the inly, vital kingdom grow 

As 'twere, in hidden root and spreading branch, 

By draughts, alike, drawn from the earth and sky. 

The planting and the watering may be ours ; 

The increase, God the life, alone can give. 

God has ordained that man by grace redeemed 
Shall be the messenger of grace to man. 
Through man, as agent, shall the kingdom come. 
His prayer shall bring its holy virtue nigh ; 
His consecrated brain and heart and hand 
Shall build its walls, erect its gates of praise 
And lay the stones of its millennial grace. 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 221 



Third Petition. 

"THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS 
DONE IN HEAVEN. 

How sweet it is to know the Father's will 
Is wholly perfect in its rectitude ! 
It is the expression of his character 
In thought, in purpose and in holy deed. 
Though absolute, it does not make the right, 
But always to essential right conforms. 
It, hence, is changeless in its inner law, 
For right is ever right, as God is God. 

Made in his image and similitude, 

With power of thought, of conscience and of will, 

We may the Father know, with him commune, 

His thought pursue, his work and actions weigh, 

And dare pronounce upon their character. 

It is our high prerogative to say 

That God is good, is just, is true, is right, 

And that his will is justified by us. 

He, in the confidence of rectitude, 

Alike, in his own perfect character, 

And in the law of right within our souls, — 

Placed there by his eternal, holy will, — 

Appeals to us for judgment on his deeds, 

Asks us to come and reason with himself, 

And say if what he does is equity. 



222 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

We may not follow all his boundless thought, 

We may not lay the plummet and the line 

Across the spaces of his universe, 

Nor on his plans in their eternity, 

But where we measure we may know him just. 

'Tis this that wakes such loyal reverence, 

Such holy admiration for his will. 

We bow to it, not only as we must, 

But lowly bow because we know we ought. 

We reprobate condemn, repent the will 

In us which dares to contravene his will. 

This made the filial soul of Jesus Christ, 

Beneath the olives of Gethsemane, 

When wrung with his mysterious agony, 

In all the endings of his pleading prayer ; 

Say : "Father, not my will, but thine be done." 

And every soul throughout the universe, 

As it shall know the mandate of his will, 

And shall have loyalty to perfect right, 

Will say, will reverently and sweetly say, 

"Thy will, not mine; thy will, O Lord, be done." 

God's will is ruled by his intelligence, 

His perfect justice and his holy love. 

Benevolence is, hence, his highest law. 

"The Lord is good and doeth good." nought else, 

"And tender mercy reigns o'er all his works. " 

O, let the heavens rejoice, because his will 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 223 

Is wrought, by his, in that sublime abode ! 

The tall, bright angels never rise so high 

As when they most profoundly, sweetly bow 

To hearken and to do God's holy will. 

No thought can give such gladness to their songs ; 

Such speed and inspiration to their wings ; 

Such exaltation to their ministry 

As this : "// is the heavenly Father's will." 

Alas, that this same perfect, holy will 
Is not our highest choice in these sad realms ! 
Rebellion reigns; confusion, sin and death 
And wild disorder hold high carnival. 
The evil genii of red-handed War; 
Intemperance and fouly bloated Lust ; 
And Mammon, with insatiate greed of gold, 
And Pride and Hate and heartless Selfishness, 
And other brood of Wrong, on earth let loose, 
Possess the darkened minds of fallen men 
And often make the earth a hideous hell. 

"But God so loved the world" — the sinful world — , 

That he from love and boundless pity gave 

His only and his well-beloved Son 

To save it from its ruin, sin and wo, — 

To die for it, — to die for all mankind, — 

That all mankind might be redeemed and live. 

And now it is the heavenly Father's will 



224 Musings tor the Quiet Hour. 

That men should everywhere repent, believe, 
Confess and own his Son as Christ, the Lord; 
Yield up their wills to his supreme control ; 
Imbibe his spirit, learn of him and live. 

O, with what sweet, insistent confidence 
The sons of men — the chosen of the Lord — 
May pray, may labor that the will of God 
"Be done on earth as it is done in heaven!" 
What order, what consummate peace and joy 
Throughout the earth would spring up in its reign ! 
The severed tie which bound us once to God, 
To angels and to heaven, our own true home, 
Would be restored, with all its fellowship, 
Its worship and its ministry of love. 

O, blessed thought ! the will of God prevails ; 
It changes not, but holds it even way, 
While working, waiting for its glorious end ! 
'Tis winning victories o'er sin and hell, 
By holy love and truth's omnipotence; 
'Tis not in vain we labor, hope and pray : 
"Thy will, O Lord, be done upon the. earth 
As it is done, in perfectness, in heaven ;" 
It even now, in growing might, prevails, 
And still will spread till it involve the globe, 
And make one holy kingdom for his Christ. 



Musings for the Quid Hour. 225 



Fourth Petition. 
"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 

If we the thrice repeated "Thy" have said, 
We then may humbly ask the children's bread. 
But first God's kingdom and his righteousness, — 
His hallowed name ; the kingdom of his Son ; 
The doing of his perfect will on earth, 
Must all precede the prayers of "Our." 
If we the Father's glory first have sought, 
Then nought shall fail of what for us is wrought. 

This is the hungry children's cry for bread. 

He knows their need, he waits not for their prayer, 

But opens wide his full and liberal hand 

And pours his richest bounties on their board. 

They ask for bread, — for so he bids them pray, — 

"He gives them all things richly to enjoy.'* 

The rains and fruitful seasons are his gift : 

Nor less, the cattle on a thousand hills ; 

The fishes in the sea, innumerable. 

The birds that swim the air, of every wing. 

At his command, the fleecy flocks undress, 

And give their warm and snowy robes to man, 

That, weaving them to bean!) for himself, 

He need not wander, shivering in the cold, 

Or fear to stand in presence of his kind. 

All precious metals, hidden in the earth. 



226 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

All shells of beauty, strewn upon the sand, 
All trees of fruit, all flowers which scent the air, — 
The globe itself, and all within, without, 
Above, beneath, is asked for in this prayer. 

What if he plow and sweat and delve and earn; 

The grand result is still the Father's gift. 

"In all remember thou the Lord thy God, 

It is his power giveth thee thy wealth." 

Health, strength, thy talent and thy workman's skill; 

Are all the gift and product of his will. 

But what if Famine stalk through breadless lands, 

And Hunger mock the cry of starving poor, 

And thousands perish in their unhelped need, — 

Yea, while they pray, and pray for bread in vain ? 

The holy prophet in his need thus spake : 

"For though the fig tree shall forget to bloom ; 

The vine to hang its clusters to the sun ; 

The labor of the olive tree shall fail; 

The blasted fields yield no accustomed meat; 

The fleecy flock be cut off from the fold, 

And lowing herds desert the empty stall; 

Yet, O my soul, rejoice thou in the Lord; 

In God and his salvation still rejoice; 

For he is still my strength, and he my song." 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 227 

Perhaps, the Lord would have us also learn 
When we convert his gift of bread to stones ; 
When we concoct from precious fruits and grains 
The deadly products of the woeful still, 
And craze our brains, inflame our hateful lusts, 
And arm our passions for unhallowed strife, 
We forfeit, thus, the very fruits of prayer. 
Perhaps, the heel of War hath trodden down 
The harvests which he builded with his sun 
And watered from the store-house of his rain, 
And thus called forth the ghastly Pestilence 
To waste the very remnants of the strife. 
What then if Judgment follow in their wake, 
And scourge the sin and folly of mankind? 
Who shall complain and say that God is hard, 
And cruel, and is deaf to human prayer? 
Yea, God is good no less when he corrects, 
Than when he pours his bounties round the land. 

Fifth Petition. 

"AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS AS WE FOR- 
GIVE OUR DEBTORS. 

This is the hard petition of the prayer, 

And not a few have feared to offer it, 

Lest this one prayer for fruits of pardoning grace 

May be a malediction on the soul. 

One reaches, but it seems a two-edged sword. 



228 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

"Forgive our debts as we also forgive" 
Goes like a quick and penetrating blade 
Between the inmost spirit and the soul, — 
Between the joints and marrow of the bones 
And shows the thoughts and feelings of the heart. 
One feels that even more than pardoned sin. 
He needs a likeness to a pardoning God. 
The hardness of tnis very balking prayer 
Is here perceived to be its noblest part. 
If one's confession gives him inward peace, 
His own forgiveness brings him victory. 

Sixth Petition. 
"AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.' 

A prayer of caution and of self -distrust. 

He who though pardoned and by grace restored, 

Looks back upon the way by which he came 

Up from the shame and bondage of his sin, 

Has inward shrinking at the very thought 

Of evermore repeating his sad steps. 

His wounds, though bound and sweetly molified, 

Recall the Jordan Valley where he met 

The robbers in the gorges and the hills, 

The shock of their unheralded assault, 

Divestment, plunder of their victim, left 

To die unhelped among the lonely rocks. 

Though Mercy take him to her gracious Inn, 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 229 

And watch and tarry by his suffering couch, 
And bring him slowly back to life and health, 
Yet, would he never, needless, try the road again. 

The writer of the penitential psalms 
Could never think of that sad eventide, 
His walk upon the roof, his lecherous gaze, 
Without a blush of crimson, royal shame. 
For all the sin and evil following hence. 
Poor Peter, weeping with a broken heart, 
His base, his weak and unexpected fall. 
Could never boast again of loyalty 
Superior courage, willingness to die, 
When he recalled the awful Judgment Hall, 
The thrice repeated questions of the maid, 
And his profane and cowardly replies. 
He would not that ordeal twice essay. 

For such, and all who like them are compelled 
To look upon a fallen and unfaithful past, 
This prayer comes with deep significance. 

But does, indeed, God lead and tempt to sin ? 
Nay, nay ; a thousand-times repeated, nay. 
As God forever is untemptible, 
And could not be seduced himself to sin ; 
So neither could he lead, incline, seduce, 
One of his creatures to transgress his law. 



230 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

Let no man say when his temptation comes, 
That he is tempted by the blessed Lord ; 
Nay, let him rather know and deeply feel 
That he is tempted by his own base lusts, 
And thus enticed to every evil thing. 
The power to draw the tempted soul aside, 
Is not in things external to itself, 
But in its inward "law of sin and death." 

But it is said: "God did tempt Abraham"; 
He tempted him to offer up his son, 
A sacrifice upon Moriah's mount. 
Yes, God tried Abraham's conspicuous faith. 
And justified him for his daring deed. 
And God will try his people for their good 
As Gold is tested in the searching fires ; 
So God will purify his chosen ones. 
In keen afflictions searching crucible, 
And trials incident to duty done. 

The storms give fiber to the swaying oak, 
And anchorage to roots beneath the soil ; 
The ox grows sturdy 'neath the laboring yoke, 
And wrestlers in the athlete's fierce contest, 
Develop giant energy and skill. 

And God would have a people tried and strong. 
They need the use of all their trained powers 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 231 

For their own state and highest happiness. 
They need their true and best development 
For highest service to the human race 
And greatest honor to the heavenly King. 

Then let them count it a peculiar joy 
When they, unsought, into temptation fall. 
Thus gracious patience and endurance come, 
And these, in turn, perform a perfect work. 

And yet, let cautious Prudence, self-Distrust, 
Profoundly know the weakness of themselves, 
And use the deprecation of this prayer: 
"Into temptation, Father, lead us not." 
Yet, if he lead, there we may safely go. 
Let us beware lest we unbidden tread 
Where dangers lurk and hidden snares are spread 
For venturous feet and self-wrought confidence. 

We may not choose to go where pain awaits ; 
Where lifted crosses spread their open arms, 
Or dark misfortune overhangs the way. 

But are we sure we would not choose to climb 
Some flowery steep; poise on some precipice; 
Mount on some golden throne, of giddy height, 
Where Ease invites, or Pride makes grand display, 
Or Power extends a scepter and a jeweled crown? 



232 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 



Here might be greater clangers to our peace, 
Our purity, our simple faith and humble love, 
Than in the deepest dungeons on the globe. 
If such temptations ever come to us, 
Then guide us by thy strong, protecting hand, 
Lest Pride and vain Conceit lead us astray. 

Seventh Petition. 

"BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL." 

"Rusai henias apo ton ponerou." 

"But deliver us from the evil one." 

There is an evil one, a fallen Power, 

Who has access, by ways to us unseen, 

To make us helpless captives of his will. 

And he may choose the form of his approach, — 

Now as a roaring lion, he may come, — 

And now, a very angel robed in light, — 

Through demons from the pit, through living men, 

And other nameless, unsuspected forms, 

May he beguile the mind, corrupt the heart, 

Enslave and captive take the human will. 

And chief of all his deep and artful wiles 

Is this: he labors to conceal himself; 

Makes mockery of that undoubting faith 

Which dares to trust the teaching of the Lord 

Respecting his existence and his aims. 

He ridicules this simple, scriptural creed, 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 233 

As superstition's self-created ghost 

To frighten credulous and childish souls. 

As keen-eyed Science has no instrument 
For weighing, testing immaterial things, 
And thus for knowing supernatural truth, 
He seeks, on grounds of simple ignorance. 
To have her say, with stilted confidence. 
There is and can be no such evil Power. 
And on this arrogant authority, 
Men laugh at what the holy Saviour taught 
About the Devil's personality. 

A tree, unseen is judged of by its fruits ; 
A stream implies a fountain at its source ; 
A motion some potential energy, — 
Thus men believe, though causes lie concealed. 

There are such fruits of evil in this world ; 
Such streams of sin and death and wo ; 
Such awful and malignant energy 
Both in the hearts and history of the race 
As call for some unseen, sufficient power 
Like that ascribed to Satan and his hosts. 

Now let the sage who scornfully derides 

Our simple but our thought-out Christian creed. 

Propose his wiser, scientific cause, 



234 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

For facts which no observer may deny. 

He may reject the Bible's names and terms, 

For other names and under other forms, 

To give us devils of another kind, 

But devils and their deeds, unchanged are here. 

'Tis better that we have a cautious fear; 
Suspect, than into danger blindly run ; 
Know that, beside the evil in the heart, 
There is an "evil one" who may inflame 
A hidden spark into a raging fire ; 
One who may cultivate some buried seed 
Of wrong, or sow some thistles of his own, 
To spring and overgrow the fruitful soil. 

Since then we are so ignorant of ourselves ; 
So ignorant of the moral universe ; 
So helpless in the course of daily life, 
And unprepared for its emergencies; 
O, let us wisely watch and daily pray : 
"Us, Lord, deliver from the 'evil one' !" 

The Doxology. 

"FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, AND THE POW- 
ER, AND THE GLORY, FOREVER. AMEN." 

'Tis well when finished prayer ascends to praise. 
"For whosoever offereth praise," saith God; 
''And brings a sacrifice of thankfulness, 
He glorifieth me." 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 235 

Such sacrifices, Lord, we bring to thee ; 

And first, because of this, thine own great prayer. 

And next, because we now have offered it. 

And last, because 'tis sealed with thy Amen. 

"Thine be the kingdom, power and glory, Lord !" 

Ours be thy, "So be it; So shall it be \" 

Thy endless kingdom ruleth over all; 

Thy boundless power maketh it secure; 

And thy eternal glory crowns the whole. 

And let the heavens and earth respond, Amen. 

THE LESSON OF THE LEAF. 

'TpHE frost-tinged, golden leaves, again 

-*■ Come sailing to the sod, 
And Autumn walks the dappled plain 
With rustling sandals shod. 

When one surveys a single leaf, 

So tinted, veined and fair, 
The marvel is that life so brief 

Should have such marks of care. 

And wonder more, great Nature seems 

To be in very haste, 
When most her work with glory gleams. 

To yield it up to waste. 



236 Musings for the Quiet Hour. 

For robbers from the frosty stars 
Steal down to loose its hold. 

And swift winds from their Northern bars, 
Break through and steal the gold. 

But yet in spite of wind and frost 
And slight of Autumn's sun. 

The leaf its mission hath not lost. 
Nor left its work undone. 

It duly spreads its grateful shade; 

Its breath made pure the air; 
Its building in the branch is laid. 

In strength and fiber fair. 

Though gone, it lives in Fancy's eyes, 

Its grace is in my heart ; 
Here, too, its treasured lesson lies 

And will not soon depart. 

When I my clasp on life shall yield. 
Twill make the parting sweet. 

To know that I have held a shield, 
Where suns and tempests beat. 

To know that I have builded, too, 
Though small should seem the gain. 

Something of goodness where I grew, 
That may long years remain. 



Musings for the Quiet Hour. 237 

To know, when I cannot endure, 

That still earth's atmosphere 
Is made more vital, sweet and pure, 

For my brief staying here. 

That when I loose my trembling hold 

On life's unsteady spray, 
Still, all the season's inwrought gold 

Shall with me pass away. 



(EC 23 



,C0P ^|L.JQCAT. 



